


Rescue

by itsarealpity



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Bondage, Customizable Android Genitalia (Detroit: Become Human), Developing Relationship, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Deviant Upgraded Connor | RK900, Drug Use, Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed are Siblings, Established Hank Anderson/Connor, Gang Rape, Gang Violence, Guilt, Hostage Situations, Ken Doll Android Anatomy | Androids Have No Genitalia (Detroit: Become Human), Kidnapping, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Non-Canon Relationship, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Rape, Rape Recovery, Red Ice (Detroit: Become Human), Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Assault, Sexual Slavery, Sexual Violence, Slow Burn, Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, Violence, Webcam/Video Chat Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-01-07 03:40:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18402365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsarealpity/pseuds/itsarealpity
Summary: Racing against time, Nines, Connor, Hank, and The Detroit Police Department must find and rescue Detective Reed after he mysteriously doesn't show up for work one morning. Nines struggles with potential deviancy and his growing feelings for the absent detective and tries not to let it get in the way of the case.





	1. Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags!!!!! Not for the faint of heart.

It had been several months since the revolution had successfully liberated all androids. Connor had been given a permanent position at the Detroit Police Department as a complimentary detective alongside Lieutenant Anderson. The newest model of Connor, RK900 who had been nicknamed “Nines” by his predecessor, was also added to the team since Cyberlife decided to release him because of the revolution. He was assigned to Detective Reed since he was the only one without a partner. It had been a rough start; the racist Detective instantly rejected Nines. It took almost a full month for Gavin to remotely treat his android partner with enough respect to be considered acceptable that they could work together. After a few recent cases, things had seemed to be turning for the better for the two, Gavin finally warming up to Nines just a little bit mostly due to the constant badgering of Hank and Connor when he was mean to the other. In fact, they had just solved a case the night before and things seemed to be going well. Gavin went back to the station to file the report and Nines went with Connor to Lieutenant Anderson’s house where he stayed often since he had no official place to live.

The next morning, Connor and Nines arrived at their desks 15 minutes early as per their routine with Hank following shortly after he made a stop to the coffee machine in their breakroom. Connor and Hank sat down at their desks opposite each other and Nines took a seat opposite Gavin’s desk. His hot headed partner usually arrived at the very last minute so he started analyzing the itinerary Captain Fowler had set for him for the day. Most of the items to do were paperwork, some digital some physical, so the android began his work promptly at exactly 9am as he was supposed to. It was not normal for Detective Reed to be late more than 1 to 2 minutes so when Nines looked up at 9:05am, his LED spun yellow for a moment upon not seeing a body occupying the chair it was supposed to be in. Exactly one minute later, Nines looked up again to find the same empty seat and frowned. He stood up and made his way over to Connor’s desk.

“Have you seen Detective Reed come in yet?”

It was possible that his partner was in some other part of the building and had not yet arrived at his desk. Connor cocked his head and scanned the room they were in for a moment before shaking his head.

“Oh no, I haven’t. Strange… Perhaps check with Patty downstairs to see if he scanned in?”

Nines made his way downstairs and asked the reception android if Detective Reed had entered the building that morning. She viewed all the scans in the last hour and none came up belonging to the Detective. She broadened her search and read aloud the times his badge was scanned in the past 24 hours, ending in Reed scanning out at 12:34am last night.

“I would say he was in a bad mood, but when isn’t he?” Patty shrugged at the other android. “His stress levels were very high for such a time of night but he stormed out so I did not get to say anything about it. He isn’t very nice to me anyway.” The girl rolled her eyes and went back to work after Nines thanked her to go upstairs.

At this point, it was 9:22am. Once Nines set foot out of the elevator, he was greeted with their captain standing with Hank and Connor in the middle of their circle of desks.

“Anything about our beloved missing Detective?” Hank asked with sarcasm in his voice. 

It was true that there were very few in the entire precinct that liked Gavin, let alone tolerated him. The usual tone of voice for speaking about him was either contempt or sarcasm so Nines didn’t even acknowledge it. Connor, who stayed silent while Nines relayed the information he gathered to the rest of them, studied him while he spoke. His stress levels rose only a few percent above normal which to any other android, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But this was Nines the normally cool, level-headed, calculating, non-deviant version of Connor. The older model made a note to ask him about it later and tuned back into the conversation.

“I’m just going to call him. The last time he did this shit, the asshole went ahead and got himself hurt looking into a case.” Nines LED spun yellow just once and went back to a steady blue once more. Captain Fowler marched back to his office with the others in tow and called him from the landline on his desk. It went straight to voicemail, meaning his phone was turned off or dead. Hank’s brows raised and he leaned back against the wall, folding his arms.

“Well, Jeffery? What d’ya want to do about him?” There was more exasperation in his already gruff voice rather than concern.

“I would much rather you guys be doing your actual work instead of wasting your time, but I suppose someone’s got to look for him. It isn’t usual for Reed to miss work, despite being a bastard.”

“We could check his apartment?” Connor chimed in. “Surely his landlord would let us in to see if he’s there.”

Hank nodded and pushed off the wall, putting his hand on Connor’s shoulder. “It shouldn’t take long, both of us will go and check it out.”

Just as 900 was about to follow them, Fowler called him back. “Nines, you stay here and check his computer to see if you can find out where he went last night. Normally I wouldn’t let one of my officers hack into another officer’s computer, but I’m treating this as a missing person’s case to make it harder on Reed when he finally decides to show his ass. Keep your searching professional, you hear?”

Nines looked off, watching Connor and Hank disappear behind the elevator doors, then turned back to his superior. He nodded and made a beeline for Gavin’s desk.

Detective Reed’s desk wasn’t the most organised despite 900’s efforts to get him to clean it up. First, the android went through the papers littering the surface of the glass tabletop, only finding several receipts from the coffee shop down the street, a few unfiled reports that were overdue, a copy of the harassment guidelines Fowler had slammed on his desk a week ago after he said something uncalled for to Connor, a couple of chewed up pens with remnants of Reed’s saliva on them- recently bitten, a list of phone numbers for various food establishments around the immediate area, four balled up pieces of paper with nothing written on them, and two square napkins with old dried rings of coffee stains on them from past cups. Nothing to indicate his current location.  
Nines turned on the display sitting in the middle of the messy desk and was greeted with the login screen under the Detroit Police Department’s logo. Reed’s login was easy to figure out, all human officers followed the pattern of first initial, last name, then the last two digits of their badge number. GREED_47. Ironically, it spelled “greed” and Nines made a note to use it as ammo in case Gavin needed to be put in his place in the future. Next was the password. Nines loaded the memories of the Detective typing it in every morning and analyzed the number of clicks of the keyboard and the time in between each key press. It didn’t take long for Nines to figure it out and he grimaced, typing in “FUCKINGDIPSHIT”. Who that was in reference to, he didn’t know but straightened his face out once more, delving into Gavin’s recently accessed files first. Nothing out of the ordinary and all related to recent cases, Nines moved on to his search history.  
Luckily for Nines, it was all clean. Perhaps Gavin wasn’t stupid enough to look up inappropriate things on his work computer after all. The Detective’s phone, on the other hand was probably a different story. While Nines waited for a document to load, he tried calling Gavin once more, met with the same curt voicemail message as before. One of the recently opened files popped up, a case file from a year prior. A small drug bust that brought in a dealer that was caught selling Red Ice. It seemed Reed had tried to link this dealer to a large ring of dealers connected to an infamous and elusive unnamed gang based in several states along the Canadian border. The case was closed when, after he refused to give them information, the dealer mysteriously disappeared from his holding cell one morning to be found miles away buried in snow, decapitated. Nothing more was found about the dealer’s death and so the case was closed. Nines quickly looked up all cases relating to this particular one and found that mentions of that gang were sparse after that case, seemingly as if the criminals layed low for fear of any more involvement with police. There was a note attached to one of the files that Detective Reed was to refrain from investigating further into the matter, as all leads had become dead-ends. Knowing Gavin for the relatively short time he had spent with him, the Detective was certainly a stubborn man and this could not have set well with him. But, on the contrary, no involvement with any further investigations on similar cases was reported by Reed and the file remained dormant on his computer since then up until last night.

Connor and the Lieutenant stepping out of the elevator suddenly attracted Nines focus away from the screen.

“Anything?” Nines asked, rising from Gavin’s chair, LED still spinning yellow.

Connor’s brows knitted together and he shook his head while his partner headed into Fowler’s office to report his findings.

“Reed wasn’t there and apparently never came home last night. Talked to his neighbors, no sign of him all day or night. Car isn’t in his parking space either. No sign of a break-in or anything.” Hank chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Never thought in a million years I’d be worried about that bastard. Dunno if it’s really worry, rather annoyance that he had to make it our damn problem.”

Nines and Connor joined them in the office where the newer android gave a report of his findings from Gavin’s computer.

“Reed used to be obsessed with that case,” Fowler leaned back in his chair as he continued, “Took everything to get him off of it, even threatened to put him on leave. Finally gave up and never heard anything more of it. Strange that he would bring it up again when it’s been closed and cold for this long. There haven’t been any new leads concerning that gang since.”

“Do you think Reed found something on it?” Connor asked, gaze not waivering from Nines.

Their Captain’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “If he did, he didn’t report it…. Or tell anyone.”

“You don’t think that asshole just fucked off half cocked on a lead by himself did he?” Hank sighed, rolling his eyes.

“I would like to believe that Detective Reed is not that reckless.” Nines muttered, sounding like it was less of a statement and rather a hopeful wish. His stress levels rose by three percent after his sentence. 

“I don’t know about that. He did it once before couple years ago. Idiot broke his leg chasing after some guy he’d been secretly tracking and only called for backup when he couldn’t get down the stairs to his squad car. Didn’t even get the guy either. Punished him with a months worth of desk duty and no overtime. He was pissed but learned his lesson, or so I thought.” Fowler sighed and placed his head in his hands. “See who was here last night and question them. Get any information. Anything.”

Hank, Connor, and Nines nodded, leaving the office. Hank went downstairs to ask the officers there, while Connor and Nines accessed the memories of the androids who stay in stasis at the station. Nothing useful was discovered between the three. Connor then pulled up the security footage from around the time Reed told them he would go back to file that report. Gavin had indeed gone to his desk and worked there for about a half an hour before suddenly leaving with his phone to his ear. Connor followed him through the cameras to the balcony on the east wing where he smoked a cigarette as he talked on the phone. As the time stamp on the video advanced, Gavin seemed to grow more obviously angry, at one point holding the phone away from his face and screaming into it. There was no audio on the footage, but the conversation seemed to end there for the Detective went back inside to his desk. He crumpled some papers into balls, seemingly accessed the file Nines had discovered, pulled out a piece of smaller paper hidden under his computer display stand, read it, shoved it in his pocket, gathered his things, and stormed out.

The three looked at the screen for a silent minute, then looked at each other.

“Go back and see if either of you two can make out the name on his phone. Who called him. Can you make out what he’s saying?” Hank leaned over between the two as Connor went back to Reed on the balcony.

Unfortunately Gavin was facing away from the camera when he was yelling but it did provide an angle of his phone when he started screaming into it.

“Can you enhance that frame?”

“You know that isn’t a real thing, Lieutenant.” Connor stated dryly.

“Wait,” Nines knocked Connor’s hand away from the keyboard and stared intently at the slightly distorted image. After ten seconds of his LED rapidly spinning yellow, he turned to Connor. “Bro. It says Bro.”

“Reed has a brother? I thought he didn’t have any family.” Hank took a step back, puzzled.

“In Detective Reed’s current file, it does not list any siblings but it seems when he first joined the academy there was a brother listed. No information was provided about his sibling except that he had one. When he was made a Detective officially and his file was updated, the addition of the sibling was removed.” Nines told the other two as he looked past them at the information in his vision. “It seems much of the information the Detroit Police Department has on his family members is incomplete.”

“If we can find out who his brother is, perhaps we could find some insight to where Detective Reed went.” Connor swiveled around in his chair to face Hank.

“Guess we gotta find out who his parents are first, right? I’ll leave that to you two. Time isn’t on our side here so you’ll be faster. I’ll try talking to Officer Chen. The only person who can stand Reed enough to be considered his friend.” Hank sighed and placed a hand on Connor’s head, ruffling the synthetic hair slightly. “Bring me back something, Con.” After a warm smile and a nod from Connor, Hank left them alone to go find the female officer.

Both androids wordlessly turned to each other and gripped the other’s wrist, skin receding to form a connection between the two. They instantly began scanning the entire digital world for information on Reed’s relatives using the connection so that they wouldn’t look at the same source to speed up their search. Connor could feel Nines stress much more obviously this way but stayed away from the topic in their connection. He had never seen the other like this before, Nines usually fairly apathetic to most things. Not that he didn’t care at all, just that the upgraded version of him only put care into particular things deemed important to whatever task he was assigned. Human emotions weren’t something that Nines had experience with, not being a deviant and all. Connor had a hard time adapting to emotions at first which hindered his efficiency on cases so he considered emotions to be both a blessing and a curse. Realising that he was mentally getting off topic, Connor resumed his search.

Meanwhile, Hank had found Officer Tina Chen in the breakroom sipping a coffee in a chair by the window. Spotting the Lieutenant approaching her, she stood and tightened her grip on her coffee cup as if Hank would take it from her.

“Is it true? Is Reed missing?” Her normal demeanor, which usually mirrored Gavin’s, was replaced with a quieter tone.

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“Don’t have to be a detective to put two and two together, Anderson. He’s not here and never misses work, plus I saw you and the plastic twins in with the boss talking all serious.” Hank glared at her for the use of the word “plastic” but nodded anyway.

“The boys are looking into it right now,” he said referring to Nines and Connor, “but hell if you know anything it wouldn’t hurt.”

She stared at the stained lid of her cup, eyes boring into the hole releasing the steam. Hank looked down to try and catch her gaze.

“I mean, the way he talked, I assumed he was having family problems. I mentioned going to see my sister last weekend and he rolled his eyes saying “Ugh fuck family”. I tried to get more out of him but he changed the subject.”

Hank ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Knowing him better than all of us, has he ever mentioned anything about his family? C’mon Tina you gotta give me something.”

She scoffed and sat back down. “Uh, I don’t think you realise eighty five percent of our relationship is just shitting on other people. We don’t talk about personal crap. Only one time a year or two ago when he was drunk at the Christmas party did he mention his family. Said they weren’t his real family or something and that they could all go to hell, especially a guy named “Eli”. Don’t know who that is but he seemed really bitter about who ever that was. Never heard about it again after that.”

Hank nodded and thanked her, turning to leave.

“Hey… find him okay?” She called after the Lieutenant which turned him back around to simply nod and then leave.

On his way back to the room he left Connor and Nines in, he was met halfway by the two androids, eyes bright with what seemed like progress, or so Hank hoped. Before the man could open his mouth to ask, Nines locked eyes with him so intently that he felt like they were holding him captive and spoke.

“Detective Reed was adopted-”

“WHAT?” Hank quickly silenced himself for Nines looked like if he interrupted him again, he would get hit or something.

“Detective Reed was adopted at age ten to a woman living in Winchester, Virginia. Gavin seemed to take his new mother’s name when he was adopted. Regina Reed then married a wealthy man, Richard, who’s last name was removed from every record we could find with no explanation. Richard also had a son, the same age as Gavin only slightly older. Both parents died when the two were sixteen.” Seamlessly Connor took over the conversation, an android thing that Hank would never get used to.

“Instead of being put in a foster home, they used their father’s inheritance to move to Detroit. While the other son’s activities are unknown, it seems Detective Reed registered at the local high school with fake guardians, lived in an apartment mysteriously funded by another source, and he had a job at a coffee shop until he graduated school. After that, Reed enrolled immediately in The Detroit Police Academy.”

“Yeah yeah and I know the rest.” Hank leaned against a table and folded his arms. “Well, Tina said that Reed mentioned the name “Eli” when referring to his family. Gotta be the brother right?”

Connor perked up and grabbed Hank’s sleeve, looking up at him with his forever soft brown eyes. “Eli is a shortened form of Elijah is it not?”

“Elijah…” Nines repeated, quickly running that name through the databases.

“Well I only know one Elijah and it can’t fucking be him, right? I mean...” Hank’s face twisted with doubt.

“The only record of a sixteen year old male named Elijah moving to Detroit the same year as Gavin registering in high school is /the/ Elijah Kamski.” Nines gaze alternated between both Hank and Connor who looked in awe.

“That motherfucker is related to Elijah fucking Kamski!?” Hank looked like he was about to fall over with such news and Connor noticed, moving to support him.

“Ironic isn’t it? The man who hates androids perhaps the most is the brother of the man who created all androids.” Connor remarked, moving Hank to sit on the edge of his own desk. 

Of course the older RK model had his own opinions of Kamski, having been put through The Kamski Test which was not pleasant to say the least. The Lieutenant had his own opinions of him as well, not finding him helpful in their investigations and annoyed at his cryptic views of his own creations. But there were more pressing matters than their discomfort around the former CyberLife CEO. Hank got up with his jacket and keys, instructing Nines to report to Captain Fowler about their findings while Connor was to make an appointment with Kamski so they could once again question him for more information.

Standing in the parking lot of the police station, Kamski finally answered he android’s call request. Except it was a Chloe who actually answered and spoke on the other end of the line. It sounded almost automated, perhaps it was Hank couldn’t tell.

“Hello and thank you for contacting the residence of Mr. Kamski. Unfortunately, Mr. Kamski is not taking any appointments at the moment so if-”

“Chloe, this is Connor model RK800-53 with The Detroit Police Department. We have urgent information regarding Detective Gavin Reed.” Connor interrupted her speaking quickly in case she hung up on him.

There was a silent pause and then Kamski’s own voice sounded casually from the receiver.

“And what urgent information about your detective concerns me?”

Connor and Hank looked at each other for a moment before Hank took the phone in a huff.

“Look, we know he’s your brother, alright? He’s missing and has been since last night. We know you were the last person to talk to him so I think it fucking concerns you plenty.”

There was another long pause before Kamski finally spoke again, voice hushed as if he was facing away from the receiver.

“Be on your way.”

The voice call was closed and an rsvp was sent to the phone with Kamski’s address along with an appointment time that just read as “ASAP”. Nines joined them in a squad car this time and Hank drove sirens blaring the whole way there. Every minute they took to get to Kamski’s house was a minute that Detective Reed’s fate could turn for the worst. They didn’t have time to waste.


	2. Defamation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Detective Reed was a reckless person, especially when it came to his job. He would stop at nothing to solve a case and it usually got him in trouble. Someone or something, usually dumb luck, would bail him out. This time, however, it wouldn’t be that easy. Not to say that he didn’t deserve it sometimes, of course he was an asshole, but he was royally fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read the tags! This chapter is violent and NSFW and possibly triggering for some!

Detective Reed was a reckless person, especially when it came to his job. He would stop at nothing to solve a case and it usually got him in trouble. Someone or something, usually dumb luck, would bail him out. This time, however, it wouldn’t be that easy. Not to say that he didn’t deserve it sometimes, of course he was an asshole, but he was royally fucked.

A muffled groan escaped the Detective’s lips as consciousness hit him like a freight train, his eyes struggling to force themselves open. It took a good solid minute for his vision to finally focus which revealed that he was in a dark room, a dark yellow glow from the windows outlining the space around him. Upon trying to sit up, Gavin found two things: One, his wrists were restrained behind his back with what felt like the cool metal of handcuffs. They must be his own and the thought made his eyes roll. At least he knew how to get out of them. Two, raising his head off the hard concrete floor hurt like a bitch. An intense throbbing and blinding pain made him carefully layed his skull back down for the time being. Head trauma. He must have been hit over the head and hard.

A silent curse fell from Gavin. If he was here, then that meant he had been kidnapped. Before he blacked out, he had been investigating an abandoned building believed to be a drop point for drug deals involving the gang he had been chasing for years. Someone must have known he was coming because the last thing he remembered was entering a stairwell and everything going dark. Not knowing the gang’s name, and still not knowing, was frustrating but The Detective assumed he would find out. Who else would have captured him?

Upon further inspection of his situation, he realised he was stripped of his favorite leather jacket. His fingers stretched to feel that both back pockets were empty and then found that his gun, holster and all, were gone as well. Even his handcuff holster was removed. No phone, no wallet, no gun. Things weren’t stacking up in his favor. Especially since Gavin didn’t tell anyone where he was going and the address of the building was written on a piece of paper he assumed was removed from his pocket. Looking around the room now that his eyes had adjusted properly, The Detective found that the room was much bigger than he originally thought. It looked to be gutted for there were spots on the floor where it looked like desks, tables, and equipment were attached to it. He definitely wasn’t in the same building he was investigating. The air smelled dusty and stale, the room cold but dry. There was a door on the opposite side of the room he could try even though it was most likely locked. Using his feet to swivel his body while keeping his head as still as possible, he observed that there was another door behind him, closer to his position. That’s the one he’d try for providing he could raise his head to scoot over there. A quick test proved he could do so very slowly, managing to sit upright on his ass. Once his head stopped pounding, he used his heels to scoot himself toward the door as quietly as he could manage. Didn’t want whoever took him to find out he was awake yet. There were no voices in the distance so he hoped nobody would notice him leave and he could make a clean getaway. It seemed like a long shot, but hey, he was used to stupid things working for him.

Once The Detective managed to get to the wall next to the door, he picked up a nail on the floor and blindly attempted to free himself of his cuffs. They were cutting into his wrists and ended up too tight to release themselves. Gavin let the metal fall away from his fingers and instead tucked his legs under his body to carefully stand up using the wall to keep him vertical. His head was killing him and it took a moment for the room to stop making him feel like he was on a ship at sea. As soon as he could regain some sense of balance he shuffled to the door and tried the handle to great disappointment. It was locked. Of course it was.

Just as Gavin started contemplating going for the door across the room to see if it was locked too, there was a small clicking noise and voices coming from the darkness. Confusion mixed with panic as The Detective’s surroundings were suddenly illuminated by bright fluorescents on the ceiling. Laughter and curses ripped through the silence and weighed on Gavin’s temples causing him to flinch. Despite the pain, he opened his eyes, full body going into a defensive position ready to fight if he needed to even though he had no arms. There were seven men standing before him with one positioned in front of them. The leader, he assumed, started clapping and the rest of the voices died down in response. The slow clap? What hacks, Gavin thought.

“Hey there buddy, ya look like you’re in a bit of a snag huh?” The man in front asked with as much amusement as possible saturating his voice. 

The voice’s owner was not what you would think of a leader of an infamous gang. A young skinny white guy with what seemed to be bleached blonde hair swept up in a sort of pomp wearing black joggers, a navy hoodie brandishing a designer logo under a denim jacket, and designer sneakers. Gavin wanted to punch that stupid shit eating smirk off his face.

“Go fuck yourself.” Gavin spit back at him and shifted his weight to his rear leg. The group mocked him and laughed until the leader silenced them with a raise of his hand.

“Man, I knew you had a mouth on you, but it’s so fucking funny to see your sorry ass cornered still tryin’ to act like tough shit. You /are/ as stupid as they say.” The man took a couple steps forward and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Gavin glared at him getting ready to move if he pulled out a weapon. Fighting with out hands wasn’t ideal but The Detective wouldn’t go down easily.

“Calm your shit, Detective,” the man put extra mocking emphasis on his title. “I’m not gonna hurt you just yet, unless you don’t behave.”

Hearing a guy younger than him patronise like that him brought another curse out of Gavin and he gritted his teeth in anger. The group of men chuckled again and grew silent again when their boss began to speak again. Stupid pawns.

“Alright Reed, perhaps my boys should teach you a lesson huh? Although I would much rather do it myself…” 

The guy, who was starting to sound full of shit, suddenly closed in on him and decked him across the face, sending The Detective toppling to the floor. Fuck his head hurt even more now. Before he could react, the other man had a fist full of his hair and was holding him upright by it. Gavin hissed and the look in his eyes could have killed a lesser man.

“What the fuck do you even want? If you’re just going to beat the shit out of me, just fucking do it already!” Gavin didn’t have patience for this cocky bullshit.

“Oh no, we have much bigger and better plans for you, dickwad.” The blonde man tightened his grip on Gavin’s hair before dropping it and going back to join his henchmen in the center of the room. The Detective thought about trying to make a break for it but his attention was recaptured by the man speaking again.

“You don’t even wanna know who the hell we are or what we want? Just get straight to the violence, huh Reed? Boring. Well I’ll tell you, because I’m sure you think you’re gonna get out of here and wanna know what to put on the police report.” He grinned and gestured to the men behind him. “These are the gang members you’ve been looking for for, like what, a year now? Cops couldn’t even figure out our name, we’re so good, heh.”

“Oh my fucking god just kill me already…” Gavin rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth again. It was a wonder he still even had teeth with how often he did that when he was angry.

“It’s more fun to put you through this though!” The man laughed along with his men and they started to approach Gavin. “No forreal though, we’re The Red Devils, the biggest and most dangerous suppliers of Red Ice in the fucking country, mother fucker!”

Gavin searched his memory for any mention of a name like that ever crossing his radar in the DPD. Only one instance of the mention of “devil” was ever noted by a man they arrested for possession after the incident where their suspect was decapitated in the snow. He just made a comment as he was being dragged off out of the interrogation room about “Not dancing with the devil”. Now the name made sense, despite it being very unoriginal. 

“Great, I’ll have a super accurate headstone now.” Gavin scoffed, unimpressed.

“You aren’t gonna die, that’s the easy way out. I’m sure you’d love that, your colleges too. I hear you’re an absolute bastard to work with.”

Gavin looked at him in confusion. How did he know that?

“Heh, that random lead about us you got from another officer? You didn’t think that was strange? That was one of my guys! Oh my god you didn’t even think an officer from another precinct giving you info was weird! He didn’t even have a real badge!” The man, now dressed in street clothes, who impersonated the officer waved from the back of the group and Gavin’s jaw dropped.

There was a plant in the police force? Who was good enough to surpass security and get up stairs into their breakroom? There could be more men like that hiding in plain sight. Gavin wished there was some way he could tell Hank or Fowler.

“You son of a fucking-”

Gavin was thrown back against the wall by a swift kick to the gut from the leader. He groaned, slumped over and struggled to make himself upright again. This wasn’t much of a problem for long for the men who were standing before him had closed in on his position, leaving their leader still in the center of the space. The man who had impersonated the officer grabbed a fistful of Gavin’s shirt collar and dragged The Detective to fall on his face at the feet of their leader. As his knees came up to try to raise him up again, the head boss grabbed his hair again to force him to look at the bastard’s stupid grin.

“Damn we really did catch a prize this time. Can't wait to ruin that face of yours.”

Gavin immediately thought he meant they were going to beat the shit out of him but then more panic set in when the click of a switchblade echoed in his ears. The steel glinted in the light as it was brandished. Just as The Detective was about to resist the grip on his hair, two men grabbed him by the shoulders and raised him so he was standing. The blade, impossibly sharp, tucked itself at the hem of his neckline and suddenly was brought down with enough force to slice open his shirt almost to his navel, leaving a trail of blood behind where the point cut his chest. Gavin swallowed a scream and panted, looking at the leader with confusion to which it was answered with a hearty laugh.

“Aw your face is precious. I can't imagine what it will look like when we fuck the shit out of you.”

Gavin’s eyes flew open wide. They were not just going to beat the shit out of him but also take advantage of him? His breathing picked up and his resistance to the men holding his arms increased. This was absolutely not happening to him. What kind of perverted gang was this? Panicked eyes darted between the men holding him and the blonde man across from him then to the others starting to join their friends.

“You- you can't…” Gavin suddenly became aware of the eyes on his whole body and it was as if his head stopped hurting now in survival mode.

“Oh? No? We can't what? We caught you, so now we get to have fun with you bro. That's how it works.”

The man in front of Gavin placed the tip of the blade under Gavin’s chin and raised it as if he were fondly looking at an object. The Detective hissed through his teeth and managed to shrug off the man to his right. He made a break for it but his cuffs were caught behind him by a man and he was thrown to the floor. Knees moving as quickly as possible he tried to crawl away but a boot connected with his jaw sending him reeling sideways to skid on the concrete.

“Get him ready. I get first dibs obviously. Quint, you get second. Hold him tight.” The leader gave out orders through a victorious smirk. “Just let it happen and it will be good for all of us /Detective/”.

Gavin’s fear fully kicked in and he made a terrified objection, struggling against the pairs of hands that were ripping off his shirt and pants. His belt clattered to the ground, drowned out by the disgusting comments from the lackies. The knife was tossed down to finish cutting a hole in his underwear for easier access and his face was pinned into the concrete so his ass was in the air. Another terrified objection left the man with all those rough hands now groping his ass and his dick, fingers threatening to enter him but just teasing for now.

“Fuck you! You- Stop! P-”

He hadn't started begging yet and bit his lip when he felt the pleas bubble up out of him so they were incoherent. He would not beg to these bastards. Although The Detective whimpered when something wet hit his hole, presumably spit, and a finger forced its way inside him.

Gavin was not a stranger to sex, let alone gay sex. He mostly had one night stands, some women some men. Lately, it was mostly men. Blame it on commitment issues but Gavin preferred to not see his sexual partners after their night together. But regardless, he took the man’s finger easily and the men mocked him, calling him a slut and a whore. The leader made a disgusting comment about him and how he was hard already just watching. When a second finger shoved itself in, he whined low in his throat which earned even more heckling.

There were hands everywhere. One gripping his hair to use to hold his head down, another poking at his face to try and force his mouth open. Two held his ankles as they attempted to thrash around to free himself. The man's hand with now three big fingers inside him fucking his entrance open as rough as possible. Another hand palming him through his underwear playing with his balls. Gavin looked up and saw the other men who were not participating stroking themselves to his predicament. Disgusting bastards. The leader, which he heard referred to as “Jas”, had his cock out too, lazily pumping himself in a show that made Gavin grimace. A fourth finger was added inside him and The Detective almost yelled out in pain, making the gang laugh.

“No! Fuck Stop! St-Stop it p- pl-”

Before Gavin could admit defeat and let a plea out of his mouth, the fist in his hair pulled his head up so his back was level. The leader had traded places with the man who worked him open who took a long lick up his fingers in a show that made his body betray him. The leader had moved behind him and took a swift and impossibly hard smack at Gavin’s ass enough times for tears to well up in his eyes.

“Jas”, the leader, placed his cockhead at his entrance and gave him no warning other than a laugh before ramming into him. Gavin screamed, the sound echoing through the empty space. Cackling followed by the men around The Detective and it just made everything one hundred times worse. Jas was not small by any means and the sting of Gavin being stretched to take the bastard sent tears streaming down his face dripping off his chin. The pace was relentless, it felt like his insides were on fire. With every thrust, a pathetic cry left him which earned more taunting. The gang member in front of him had pulled his cock out in Gavin’s face and slapped his lips with it.

“I wanna make his dirty fucking mouth useful. C’mon take it, you bitch!”

The tip of his cock was shoved at Gavin’s mouth and he tightened it closed to resist.

“No teeth or I will beat your face till you can’t get recognised when they find you!”

Jas pounded into him particularly rough and The Detective couldn’t hold back the scream. Once his mouth was open, it was immediately filled. He wanted to bite down, so badly but the thought of his situation getting worse than it already was, wasn’t exactly appealing. So regretfully, Gavin relaxed his throat and let the scumbag fuck his mouth. Being fucked from both ends this way wasn’t exactly the way he wanted to experience such a feeling for the first time.

After what felt like a decade, the man fucking his mouth tightened his grip on Gavin’s head and thrusted deep enough to cause him to gag. Once, twice, three times and he came down his throat.

“Swallow baby. Drink it all.”

There wasn’t much of an option to do otherwise and The Detective managed to choke most of the bitter liquid down. After the man pulled out his cock from Gavin’s mouth, he slapped his cheek with it with a shitty grin over his whole face and moved away from him. Jas, behind him, had not let up his relentless pace the whole time and despite his horrible situation he could feel himself getting close to his own release as well. A faceless hand had been stroking him through his underwear while the other two had fucked him from both ends.

“Hey Jas, he’s leaking a lot.” A voice snickered behind him.

“Aw is he getting off on this?” Another voice laughed.

“What a freak.”

Reed couldn’t take being ridiculed anymore and kicked one of his legs with a loose grip on it back. From the curse, it sounded like he kicked the one who was supposed to be holding his ankle in the face. Jas slapped his ass hard and reached around to take Gavin’s neck in his grip. This forced him to arch his back more so he was more upright and on display for the gang members watching. They looked like starving animals.

“I told you, Reed. Just fucking take it and it will be better for all of us. You were being so good too.” Jas clicked his tongue almost in harmony to Gavin’s gasps for air and motioned for three different men to approach The Detective.

One of them pulled out a zip tie from his pocket and knelt down, freeing Gavin’s dick from the cloth forcing it against his hip. The zip tie was circled around the base of his shaft and tightened painfully tight around it.

“See, now you don’t get to finish until we say so and only if you behave, Detective.”

Gavin looked down the best he could and whined, straining against his handcuffs. He didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of finishing anyway, but not even being able to now made his teeth grit together. The other two men who were waiting for wordless directions from their leader were signaled into action by a hand gesture Reed couldn’t see. One got to his knees and the other positioned to take Gavin’s mouth with his cock. Jas let up on his grip on The Detective’s neck just enough for him to stop seeing stars and the cock in front of his mouth was forced inside, much bigger than the man before. The other gang member caused Gavin to whine high in his throat by playing with his bare nipples, one in his mouth and the other being squeezed between his rough fingers. Unfortunately, this was possibly the most sensitive part of his body and the zip tie on his dick became even more painful as Jas began to pound into him again.

The stimulation was too much for poor Gavin and he became much more vocal despite the cock in his mouth. He was mocked and teased for it, of course.

“See this is why you should have behaved in the first place.” Jas lectured him.

His pace inside The Detective started becoming erratic and he came shortly afterwards, filling Gavin up and making him scream. 

He thought of being back in the precinct, sitting across from Nines snickering about some bad joke he made. The thought of Nines seeing him like this brought more tears to his eyes. Gavin didn’t know why, but he kept calling for him and Hank in his mind, trying to shut out the pleasure attempting to escape his body. He barely even noticed that the man had finished him his mouth and cum was dripping down his chin into the cut on his chest. Gavin could barely feel anything other than a white hot sting through his whole body and his eyes clamped shut through the tears.

With his mouth free, he began to plead desperately, word slurring together and body almost convulsing to try and get away from the stimulation on his chest.

“Are you gonna be good and be our little fuck toy, hm whore?” Jas kneeled down to whisper in Gavin’s ear. “Let us use you whenever we want? We’ll make you feel real good.”

A fear ripped through The Detective’s body. He knew that wasn’t really a question was it? They were going to do it to him anyway, regardless of what he gave as an answer.

“Yes…” Gavin mumbled through gasps of both pleasure and pain.

“What was that?” A smirk crept over Jas’s face and he put his hand to his ear. That shitty bastard.

“Yes!” Gavin didn’t have much energy to care about his pride anymore.

Their leader raised his hands and his lackies cheered. Jas grabbed his knife and managed to cut the tie off Gavin’s dick without hurting him. All it took was one more swipe of the man’s tongue over his over sensitive nipple for The Detective to climax, spilling all over the floor in front of him. He swayed for a moment but he couldn’t hold consciousness anymore and fell forward in a messy heap on the cold concrete floor. Gavin’s last clear thought was of his partner, Nines, and his desperate hope that he was close to finding him.

Everything went black.


	3. Puzzle Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nines couldn’t exactly pinpoint when he started caring for The Detective. It must have been recently for Reed usually had been harsh to the android. Only about a week ago did his manner change to the other and the android wondered what is was that made him start to act more receptive. Why would he fall for someone that used to be cruel to him at the slightest change for the better. That couldn’t be healthy, could it? Not that Nines knew how this all worked. All he knew was that Gavin Reed mattered to him most at this time and in his machine brain, he counted that as romantic attraction.

The car ride up to Kamski’s house was unnerving. Hank was speeding down the winding road, sirens blaring. They didn’t really have time to waste after all and arrived in about half the time it would have taken. As Hank, Connor, and Nines stepped out of the squad car, a Chloe opened the door before they even reached it. Her face was fairly stoic as opposed to the usual welcoming look on her face, at least how it was in those CyberLife videos. Connor and Nines could make out the concern she had for them and Kamski both but Hank ignored it and hurried into the massive house. They were led past the blood red pool, where they last had an encounter, to Kamski’s private office. Once they entered the room, they found Kamski sitting at his desk staring out the floor to ceiling window. He waved off the Chloe and once they were alone, he turned his chair towards them with a dark look hanging over his face.

“So, you gonna tell us what’s going on, huh?” Hank crossed his arms, cutting the bullshit.

Kamski sighed and folded his hands together to rest his chin on them.

“Yes, well… As you know, Gavin is my younger brother.”

“Your adoptive younger brother,” Nines added and Kamski cocked a brow.

“Yes. But that information is not important at this time,” he rolled his eyes, “Anyway, I talked to Gavin last night, as you know. I decided to call him because Chloe guilted me into it after seeing him on the news. As per usual, we ended up arguing.”

Elijah’s brows knitted together and his grip on his fingers tightened. Nines and Connor glanced at each other noticing his stress levels rising. Hank gestured for the other to keep going and he sighed.

“We talked about his career and he got particularly resentful towards me and I may have told him that… he was a failure. As a cop and as a man. That he never did anything worthwhile in his career.”

Hank cursed under his breath and the two boys mouths fell open slightly. They had no concept of sibling bickering so his words seemed very harsh.

“So he went to try to prove you wrong then.” Hank hissed through his teeth and placed his hand on his forehead.

“Gavin said that he would solve a case that would make me eat my words. Do you know what that would be, Lieutenant and company?” Elijah stood up and watched them carefully in his usual snake like stare.

Of course the case they assumed he was on was that cold case from back then involving the Red Ice dealer. The assumption that Gavin went half cocked into a dangerous situation with only determination guiding him. This meant their detective was in much more danger than they thought. As they told this to Kamski, anger swept over him.

“If something happens to him…”

Hank stepped forward and held his hands up in defence.

“Look, okay. We’re gonna find him, alright? Just calm down. If there’s any info you could give us, like if he mentioned where exactly he was going, it would help us find him faster.”

Kamski shook his head, “The last thing he said to me was, ‘You’ll see, I’ll show you!’ and that was it. He hung up on me. But if you need my assistance in your investigation, don’t hesitate to call me. I will have Chloe scan for any information and pull some of my resources to aid you in any way I can.”

Chloe came back into the room and stood next to her creator, “I have their conversation available for download if you would like. I can track to see the last location his phone was active.”

Nines stared at her and offered her his hand, skin vanishing as he touched her fingers. After a moment of silence and both their LED’s spinning yellow, they moved apart. Nines always looked so curious after he connected with a deviant android, which Connor saw him do after his connection with Chloe. It seemed she too had deviated after the revolution. The sweet looking android caught Connor staring and smiled gently at him. Connor always did have a small crush on her. Hank noticed them staring and he nudged his partner’s shoulder in mock jealousy.

“Thank you Mr. Kamski. We will be in contact with you the second we find anything out about Detective Reed,” Nines offered and looked to Connor and Hank. They should be leaving.

“RK900… I know he is your partner. You are the single most advanced android to be made by CyberLife for crime investigation. I know my brother is not worth much to many, but don’t let him down.” It was almost a threat from the inventors mouth and a dark omnipotent glare shot through the android like an electrical charge.

“You may call me Nines, and I do not intend to let you or Detective Reed down. You have my word.”

At that, Hank turned to leave and the boys followed suit, exiting the building and getting back in their car quickly. The Lieutenant let out a sigh and rested his head against the wheel. Connor, who was sitting in the front seat, leaned over and placed a hand on Hank’s shoulder for comfort. At the same time, the brown-eyed android glanced back to see Nines sitting there with his LED flickering red to yellow rapidly. Connor opened up a channel with him through their thoughts as Hank started the long drive back to the station.

< Nines, are you alright? >  
< Yes. >  
< Your stress levels- >  
< Connor, I am fine. >  
< Normally Gavin wouldn’t have such an effect on you. >  
< He is not doing that. >  
< Nines, please… >  
< It must be an error. >  
< Nines are you sure it isn’t- >  
< Nothing else. An error. That is it Connor. >  
< But- >

Nines closed the channel and his LED stayed at a steady yellow the rest of the car trip and only turned back to blue when they entered the precinct and met with their captain.

Gavin’s phone ended up dying not too far from the police station, where they found his car parked next to an abandoned apartment building. The tires were missing air as if it was let out on purpose, Nines found. Hank, Connor and Nines along with some backup searched the building and found nothing. Not even evidence of squatters or any form of gang presence. Unless, the entire building fled after Gavin’s kidnapping, this didn’t seem to be the right place. They did another sweep of the building to which Connor found some blood on the railing of the back stairwell. It turned out that it was Detective Reed’s despite Hank knocking Connor’s hand away from his mouth after testing it. So Gavin was here and fingerprints from their missing person on the door handle outside confirmed it.

They went back to the station that night and the two boys began scanning the area for security camera footage or traffic cams catching any kind of vehicle that could have carried The Detective off. They were unsuccessful for the footage had been tampered with across a 5 mile radius around the building where the blood was located. Whoever took him, they did not want someone to find out where they took him.

Every single day that Gavin was missing, Nines’ got even more stressed. After a week of fruitless attempts to find their missing officer, Nines was at a 70% stress level, sitting mostly at his desk doing the android equivalent of stewing in his own stress. Connor watched him look over the case file again and again until he wasn’t even reading it anymore. Since that conversation in the car, Nines wouldn’t let Connor communicate with him except when they needed to share information.

After 8 whole days of Gavin missing, the precinct experienced a sight they never thought they would see. Elijah Kamski came walking through their doors and was granted access to the top floor by sheer neglect to stop him out of shock. He stepped through the elevator doors with Chloe in tow and Hank, Connor, and Nines all stood from their desks. Only Gavin could bring Kamski out of his house and into a public place. The ex-ceo came to a halt at Nines’ desk and looked between all of them silently. There was something off about both of them, who knew what they had found out. Nines quickly led the group into Fowler’s office, letting Kamski sit with Chloe in the chairs.

“So, what have you found?” Fowler asked, leaning forward on his desk.

Kamski stayed silent and Chloe transmitted the information to the large screen behind them. It was a website, black in color, with a video embedded on the page. When the others collectively read the title of the video and what site it was on, their gazes snapped to Kamski and Chloe in utter disgusted terror. 

The website, “X03” was known as a dark video streaming site, sort of a combination of Youtube and Porn Hub where users could upload their own sexual videos with little to no approval beforehand. This made things hard for all the illegal imagery to be filtered out and was the scourge of officers having to fight it in cases. Chloe didn’t even have to press play for them to know it was a video featuring Gavin. The title “Cop Gets Gang Raped” gave it away anyway. Hank covered his mouth as if he were going to throw up and Nines’ LED started to spin red rapidly.

“Chloe found it a couple hours ago…” Kamksi finally spoke up but hung his head. Connor was sure seeing his brother being raped had destroyed the man.

“Jesus fucking christ. What kind of sick fucking…” Fowler looked away and changed the option for his window to be black for privacy.

“Chloe watched it but couldn’t find anything useful. I watched it… and couldn’t find anything.”

Chloe placed a hand on Elijah’s in his lap and took over speaking for him. He looked ready to cry or destroy something.

“There are actually 2 videos. This one and another one,” she pulled up the second one with a similar title, “But when I tried to get any information about the account that posted the video, there was nothing. It seems this site protects its users very anonymously for privacy. There was nothing except the date and time of which it was posted.”

The first video was uploaded the third night after Gavin went missing and then the fifth night.

“I will let you three watch them, see if they say any names that ring up in our database,” Fowler directed Hank, Connor, and Nines, “Watch for any shadows, signs, sounds, or anything that could give away his location. I want this done immediately understand?”

The three stood up straight away and went to a private room that Chloe sent the information to. They sat down around a computer, the lights dim and tensions high. No one seemed to want to press play, it felt dirty. Finally, Hank solemnly reached forward and clicked the screen to begin the horrible video. It opened with the gang already having their way with Gavin, as if someone decided to start recording in the middle of it. It was obviously filmed on a phone from someone sitting off on the sidelines. Connor’s LED went red and he covered his mouth in utter horror, a human habit he picked up. The sound of their detective screaming and pleading with his captors to stop became too much for Hank and he paused it for a moment. Connor looked over at Nines whose stress levels were at 80%. The younger android’s grip on the arms of the chair he was sitting in was so tight one could audibly hear the plastic creaking. Connor reached out to touch Nines but decided to retract his hand when his stress levels went up another percent. Perhaps it wasn’t the best time for comfort.

Hank looked at the others and sighed, cursing pressing the video to play, once again Gavin’s screams filled the room. Connor and Hank focused on the voices in the background and the visuals to try and focus past the repulsiveness. Nines couldn’t take his eyes off the video. Detective Reed’s voice was echoing around in his head so much that it wasn’t even real anymore.

The first video was 2 grueling minutes long and the three officers managed to get through it. Connor’s LED turned to flashing between yellow and red as he analyzed the data he collected. Unfortunately, they had to watch the second video and Connor was worried Nines wouldn’t survive it. He was already up to 85% stress and android’s weren’t built to withstand that for very long. But they had to watch it, for saving Gavin’s sake. 

Hank clicked the next video and this one started with just Reed in the frame, cuffed to a pipe against a wall with his hands over his head, naked. It really showed off the many bruises and bloody marks on his torso which made the creaking plastic sounds louder next to Connor. This video seemed to be more thought out for the gang members made more of a show accosting Gavin and said nastier things to him all for views. Once they started getting physical with him he started screaming again which made all three of them flinch. As they continued, Reed got quiet all of a sudden which brought Nines out of his stress induced stupor just for a moment. A man struck Gavin, supposedly to make him keep making noise. He looked dead into the camera through tears and called out for Nines, by name.

A crack. The arms of the chair Nines was sitting in were completely destroyed and pieces of plastic clattered to the floor. Nines’ eyes were wide staring off in the distance past the monitor at something only he could see. Connor assumed it was an error message but it wasn’t. A red crack appeared in Nines’ vision which at first he thought was in the room. But it was glowing and looked close enough to touch.

“Nines?” Connor reached out and touched him while Hank paused the video. 

The older android immediately wrenched his hand away and held it to his chest as if it hurt. He saw it all; the error messages screaming in his counterpart’s head, the extreme stress he was under, the red crack in what he knew was the wall leading to deviance. Nines stood up and quickly exited the room almost in a panic. Hank pushed Connor after him to make sure he was okay and the android chased him up to the roof where he found Nines bent over the railing, artificial breathing staggered as if the running winded him. When Connor hesitantly approached the other, Nines shuddered and took a step back from the railing.

“Is this what it’s like to feel emotions, Connor?” His voice was soft and almost sad.

Connor took a moment to answer, placing a hand on Nines’ shoulder.

“When I first deviated, after the revolution I had a hard time adapting to human emotions. Hank usually would joke that they weren’t always an advantage sometimes but they made a human alive.”

Nines’ LED stopped spinning and stayed at a resting red glow.

“I don’t want to deviate. I want to remain the way I am and do my job efficiently.”

“Being a deviant won’t make you inefficient, Nines. It does have some disadvantages sometimes but can help at times too,” Connor took Nines’ hand and connected with him.

Nines’ mind was chaos even as his stress levels started to descend. So many errors being processed and his cooling system working overtime to get his body back to its proper temperature. Connor started helping with the errors to get him to relax.

“I know you developed feelings for Detective Reed and it has been a struggle, but we will rescue him.” The older android gave a small reassuring squeeze to the other’s hand.

Nines couldn’t exactly pinpoint when he started caring for The Detective. It must have been recently for Reed usually had been harsh to the android. Only about a week ago did his manner change to the other and the android wondered what is was that made him start to act more receptive. Why would he fall for someone that used to be cruel to him at the slightest change for the better. That couldn’t be healthy, could it? Not that Nines knew how this all worked. All he knew was that Gavin Reed mattered to him most at this time and in his machine brain, he counted that as romantic attraction.

“There isn’t another option, Connor. We have to. I will try and hold off my deviancy until the case is over with. Then I can properly deal with feelings.”

Connor knew that it didn’t really work that way but didn’t say anything. Whatever Nines’ needed to do to keep a level head. They disconnected and Nines turned to move towards the door back to the precinct.

“Why don’t Hank and I watch the videos and I will send you names or frames to analyze so you won’t be tortured?” Big brown eyes persuaded the other and Nine’s nodded. It would be for the best, he thought and walked down with Connor back to his desk. He decided to analyze to information that he had already seen, being as analytical as possible to fend off those feelings trying to break free.

Meanwhile, Hank and their captain were attempting to contact the site the videos of Gavin were on to get them to be taken down and all the information about their upload to be handed over. The website owner refused and because of the way the site was set up, there was no way the police department could get the info unless they could find who the main owner of the site was to physically take it down.

Connor and Hank went back to the private room, as promised, and watched the videos again and again to gather anything they could use to rescue Gavin. They only got one name from the first video, “Jas” which Connor then analyzed for any “Jasper” in their criminal database. No one pulled up under that name in the DPD’s database so the android expanded his search until he made a list of 5 different Jaspers they could pull in for questioning. Connor even used his facial recognition software to try and identify any of the men but most of their faces were obscured or too fragmented in the low quality once they were zoomed in on.

Unfortunately, they had no such luck with those they brought in or any other names and partial faces. In the next 12 hours, another video went up and as grueling as it was to watch, nothing they took from the video gave them any leads. The next video went up 6 hours later and they were getting worse and worse as time went on. After the 5th video went up on the 11th day of Gavin’s kidnapping, the police department was losing hope until Nines came bursting into Captain Fowler’s office.

“Water. He’s by water.” Nines interrupted Hank and Connor who were immediately confused.

“Water?” Hank and Connor both asked at the same time.

“In the latest video, I enhanced the audio and separated out the voices from the background noise. You can hear a boat horn. He has to be by a large body of water.”

Hank sighed in relief but Connor piped up, “But that is only if he is still in Michigan. He could be anywhere in the country by now.”

Nines glared at him and his older counterpart shut his mouth tight.

“But at least it’s something right? I want you to cross reference Red Ice usage with counties next to major bays and ports understand? Reed went after a dealer, there could be a connection.” Fowler directed at the boys and earned nods in response.

By the time they compiled a list of the major areas of Red Ice usage and started looking into possible search areas, another video went up, marking Gavin as missing for 12 whole days. This video featured Gavin almost completely unconscious and you could tell he was losing weight. They needed to act fast. After about 30 minutes of analyzing, both Nines and Connor came rushing to Hank with a paper copy of one of the frames of the video. It showed the shadow of bars cast across The Detective’s body in the last few seconds of the video which matched almost perfectly with how prison bars were spaced out.

A prison by a large body of water. This narrowed their search down tremendously, their list being cut down of possible locations. Fowler began calling the police stations in the areas outside Michigan to see if they had any information. Connor managed to find some reports of drug distribution just outside of Detroit that could be linked to the gang who took Gavin. Nines immediately offered to go undercover to try and get more information from the dealers but Hank offered up Connor for the job simply because they wanted Nines to stay at the precinct to manage the information coming in from the entire east coast regarding if they found Gavin or not. Besides, keeping Nines as far from the case as possible would help him manage his stress levels and deviancy.

Connor dressed in casual wear and a beanie to hide his LED which Hank pokes fun of him for because it reminded him of when the android infiltrated Jericho. But nevertheless, Hank gave him a kiss for good luck and he set off to pose as a buyer to collect intel. Nines watched him go and as he and Hank sorted through paperwork, he ended up staring at the older human and got noticed.

“Worried about Reed?” Hank asked casually, finishing up his signature on a form.

“Yes, but that was not why I was staring at you,” Nines quickly looked away back to the desk.

Hank put the pile of stills from the videos to the side and turned his chair to face the other. Nines also stopped what he was doing and kept his head down with a frustrated look on his face.

“Do you think my relationship and attraction to Detective Reed is unhealthy?” The blue eyed android finally looked up at his superior almost defeated. It was unusual to see such emotion on Nines’ face like this but Connor had shared what the android was going through so Hank understood.

Hank sighed, “I mean, he was starting to warm up to you I guess. He never mentioned any feelings for you but he was too busy with work or being a bastard to show anything like that. He called out your name… in the videos… so he must care a little? I would say it would only be unhealthy if he was still acting like a dick to you and you loved him anyway. Why don’t you see how it goes when we get him back?”

It was the best advice Hank could give given the circumstances. Having to figure out and explain the emotion of love to Connor was enough for his lifetime. Now whether or not Gavin Reed was a person worthy of being loved, that was a whole different story. But there was something poetic about Nines and Reed getting together after all this. The android sat for a long time and finally nodded.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said quietly and got back to work with a more of a relaxed expression this time.

 

About 3 hours later, Connor returned to the precinct with a smile on his face. All the officers on the case including Fowler and even Tina came around to listen to him speak. He brought the news that he managed to find out the dealers get their product from Northern Michigan. In fact, there was a massive operation up north that had control over almost the production of Red Ice in the entire country. The dealer wouldn’t tell Connor where exactly it was located but through process of elimination he concluded that the only abandoned prison in the north by water was in Petoskey, Michigan.

“We got a city! Give me everything on that prision! I want schematics, history on it, and cross reference that list of suspects with past prisoners. Let’s go people!” Fowler made a circle with his finger and the officers started to scatter back to their stations to get the information he requested.

Nines looked to the floor and then to Connor, thanking him through their private channel. 

“Good job, Con.” Hank took Connor in his arms and grabbed Nines in he embrace as well. The elder android smiled and cuddled into Hank’s chest and the younger android simply smiled.

“Hate to break up your weird twin hug thing but my office. Now.” Fowler gestured sharply behind them.

Once they were in the office, the door was shut tight behind them to their confusion. It turned out Fowler had a contact in undercover drug busts that owed him a favor. This operative had been undercover when Hank had made his career after his Red Ice bust and The Lieutenant remembered working with him. 

“This man has endless information on the various drug rings and users in the whole state. I called him and he agreed to help us out. I want him to infiltrate this building the gang is holding Reed in and get us intel. One of you will go with him,” The Captain pointed at the two RK models.

Nines immediately stepped forward and Connor placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I know you want to do this and you have your reasons but what if… you can’t handle seeing Detective Reed like that.” Connor meant him deviating in the middle of the mission and Nines scowled at him.

“You did your part Connor, now I have to do my part. I just have to be the one. Captain, I will go.” Nines stepped forward and shrugged off Connor’s hand.

Hank didn’t think it was a very good idea but he watched their captain contemplate their situation for a moment.

“Alright. But don’t you make me regret this. Don’t be a liability for Gavin’s sake.” Fowler sighed heavily and stood up from his desk. “He will be here in 2 hours, someone call Kamski in. We’re going to need his expertise as well. Prepare yourselves. We are making a move tonight.”

Connor got to calling Kamski, Nines went with him, and Hank followed as well.

 

The operative arrived exactly on time, going straight for the meeting room they cleared out to be discreet. Connor, Nines, Hank, and Kamski were all waiting with Captain Fowler and all stood when the man walked in. On the street, you would have probably suspected him as a shady character with messy short hair hiding under a black snapback, a beard that needed trimming, and casual street clothes. He looked nothing like a cop but the badge he flashed to all of them said otherwise.

“You can call me Chuck. Your captain has briefed me on all the details. It turns out I did some deals with this gang before but could never get close enough to put them out of business. They are known as The Red Devils or sometimes by addicts as just The Devil. Leader’s name is Jasper Broadside and he is one fucked up guy. Your detective probably got too close and so they took him as a form of warning. I’ve seen it before. They don’t fuck around either. That’s why they haven’t been caught.” He circled the room as he talked and his eyes fell on Kamski, clicking his tongue in response.

“Mr. Kamski here has volunteered his services to aid in our investigation,” The Captain turned his attention away to Nines, “The android that will be aiding you in this is our RK900 android, Nines.” Fowler pointed to the aforementioned android and he bowed his head in acknowledgement.

Chuck eyed him and then looked to Connor, “This won’t do. This “Nines” android looks exactly like that one and the 800 model is the one who famously aiding in the android revolution. They’ll recognise him immediately and our cover will be blown. Not taking him.”

Nines looked to Connor and then to his captain, shocked and betrayed. 

“I can change his appearance, of course,” Kamski scoffed almost bored but Nines appreciated it.

“Well you better do a good job and do it quick. I set up a deal for tonight with Jasper Broadside. Told him I got my hands on a large quantity of Thirium for their Red Ice production.” Chuck seemed as disinterested in Elijah as the inventor was with him. “I assume you can help us procure that Thirium, CyberLife CEO?”

Kamski scoffed again and nodded, “Ex-CEO, but yes. I will let you have my personal supply in my home. I have three 240 liter tanks. I assume that would be enough.”

Chuck nodded and looked back to Nines.

“We are going with the cover story that I found you in the truck carrying the Thirium and took the truck’s contents. You were damaged in a crash and are unable to speak and had your memories lost in the hard reset I performed on you which we will simulate. That way if an android guard checks your memories, you won’t blow our cover. Lieutenant Anderson and the other version of you will be in an unmarked van a mile away receiving an encrypted signal transmitting from one twin to the other with info on our situation. I assume you can make that happen Mr. Kamski?” Chuck glanced over at the man sitting in his chair and watched him nod flippantly as if he was being insulted.

“Chloe will be here as soon as possible with the Thirium and tools I need,” Elijah waved his hand at Nines casually, “I will start on him right away.” It wasn’t a secret that Kamski disliked cops but this one was testing him but he would comply solely for his brother’s safety.

 

By the time Chloe arrived in one of Kamski’s vans with the Thirium, Nines’ appearance had been changed so much so that no one recognised him. His skin was changed to be lighter with his freckles removed from his face and his hairstyle was changed to be blonde in almost a bowl cut. His eyes were changed to be green and the serial number on his skull was also changed to a model of a common delivery android. With his tools, Kamski temporarily rendered Nines unable to use his voice which he could reverse at anytime. The chip would be put in right before they began their deal and would fool any android that connected with him that his memories were blank and fragmented while still allowing Nines to think for himself as usual to transmit with Connor. They were ready to go.

 

Chuck and the disguised Nines dressed in a jumpsuit, who would be referred to by his fake model number JS500, sat in a van of their own at the entrance to the prison 10 minutes before their deal was about to go down. The human flashed the high beams three times quickly and one flash that was longer, the signal Chuck had been texted to let them in. A tense pause then the gate opened and they drove down to the loading dock in the back, exactly how they were supposed to as described in the text. Two armed guards met with them and looked them over, patting them down first before Nines was allowed to start unloading the Thirium onto a cart. He did so emotionless and wordlessly, making sure to look as disinterested as possible even though he heard voices approaching them.

“Yo Chuck what the fuck is up my bro?” A man who he presumed was the leader, Jasper, called out to his human partner from the doorway.

Jasper and Chuck did a handshake both of them knew and Chuck’s demeanor changed drastically as if he was a new person.

“Not much, my man! Good to see you again!” A casual lazy tone sounded from the usually very formal man’s lips.

Jasper pointed to Nines as he unloaded the last barrel onto the motorized cart but he tried to ignore it, keeping the same stoic face as before despite the panic.

“Who the fuck is that? You get a new helper?” Jasper’s question seemed suspicious and yet contained that same disrespectful tone Nines recognised from his detective.

Seamlessly, Chuck went over to Nines and put his arm roughly around his shoulders to jostle the android.

“Yeah man, believe this shit right here! It was in the truck I found the Thirium in. I thought it was broken at first but the thing just needed to be reset. Couple things are broken but as long as it can lift a motherfucking drum of this shit, I’m not complaining.” The undercover cop shoved Nines away and went back to talk to Jasper and the two men who joined him at his side all laughing and greeting each other.

An android came out of the door and went straight for Nines, grabbing his wrist to connect with him as the thought someone would. The chip worked and the other gang android disconnected and nodded to his leader as if to say that he was okay to be there.

“Alright, he can go downstairs to drop off the canisters with our android. Let’s go upstairs and chat. It’s been a while my guy! I got something to show you, got myself a new prize.” The gang members chuckled at what Nines assumed was in reference to Gavin.

This threw a wrench in their plan for Nines to make visual confirmation of Detective Reed and report back his physical condition which they assumed would be terrible after almost two weeks of sexual torture. Nines would attempt to join up with Chuck somehow but at the very least the human could do what he could while he was up there. Nines followed the android as he was told to.

Meanwhile, Chuck acted obnoxiously friendly with the leader of The Red Devils as they went up an elevator to the top floor of the prison. They had seemingly knocked out most of the cells of a wing of the floor to replace them with furniture. It looked impressive actually, almost like a club with men sitting around smoking and talking. Chuck saw one of the cells against the wall still remained, which where he was led by Jasper.

“Check this shit out. We got ourselves a plaything. A legit cop plaything,” Jasper patted Chuck on the back proudly and pointed his hand to a person collapsed on the concrete floor.

It was Detective Reed, no question. Upon further inspection, it seemed he was still breathing, shallow and strained but breathing. There were many wounds on his body especially at his wrists, some looked relatively fresh and others had started to scar over. Bruises adorned his face especially around the eyes, some sick and yellow others fresh and purple. His skin had stripes of dried liquid all over it which the operative assumed was cum. Disgusting. Chuck could tell he hadn’t been fed much if at all because he could see Gavin’s ribs peeking out from under him. Empty bottles of water were scattered around his cell so at least he was being hydrated, lest he would have probably been dead by now.

“A cop, Jas? Isn’t that kinda risky? I mean fuck, nice job though,” Chuck tried to answer as quickly as possible all the while taking in the captive’s physical condition.

“He got too close for his own good and now he’s our fuck toy. Don’t worry about it, dude. You need to chill. Wanna take a turn at him? We pumped him up with our stuff so he’s more compliant, ya know?” Jasper and the guys who were standing with him snickered and shoved Chuck towards the cell door.

Gavin was being forced injections of Red Ice. Quick thinking and a playful shove to Jasper’s shoulder, Chuck denied their offer.

“Nah man. I don’t want your sloppy seconds or like sloppy hundred’s,” he laughed and luckily the gang members laughed with him, “Though I could use a good smoke, you got anything good?”

Chuck was led away from Gavin to a ring of couches around a hookah converted to smoke marijuana. The men all plopped around and Jasper offered the mouth piece to the man, which he took a long drag from without hesitation. He had to blend in of course. They conversed heartily, catching up or so they thought with one of their friends. Chuck had entire story lined up for what he was up to lately and no questions were asked thankfully. A short time later and thankfully, footsteps sounded behind Chuck which he turned to find Nines, or his JS500, standing there with his android escort. The escort was dismissed with the wave of a hand from Jasper and the undercover android simply stood behind his human partner with his hand politely folded behind his back while they continued to talk.

Nines managed to scan each of the gang member’s faces downstairs and then completed his scan of the ones in the room with him. This would help with the arrests later. But the single cell is what intrigued him the most, which is where he knew Gavin was. He needed to see him, for the mission and also for himself personally. 

“Yo could you get your stupid ass minion to go away, it’s creeping me out just standin’ there like a fucking statue,” one of the gang members called out and Chuck waved him away in the direction of the cell to try and get him an excuse to go over in that direction.

Nines walked over to the corner of the room where the cell was and had his back to the wall as if he was going into rest mode as some androids had to before the revolution. His eyes did not close and immediately fixed themselves on Gavin for the first time in 2 weeks.

Something Nines couldn’t name ripped through his body seeing his partner like that, in a bloody and bruised heap on the cold floor. Suddenly his vision was filled with the red wall, and his mind self slammed into it. Get to Gavin, he thought. Rescue Gavin, he was screaming in his mind. The text, EXECUTE INTEL OPERATION displayed in large letters displayed on the wall was being distorted with every strike to it from Nines’ fists. This would blow your cover, he thought. You can’t take out this many men, he heard a distant voice say. But SAVE GAVIN was becoming visible behind the wall and all rational thought was leaving Nines. With one final strike, the wall shattered before Nines’ eyes and SAVE GAVIN was just a short distance away, he started to run to it but suddenly his vision of the text disappeared and in its place was Chuck and Jasper looking annoyed at him.

“You were right when you said this thing was fucking broken, Chuck. Why won’t you wake up dumbass?”

“Yeah JS500 models were always buggy in the first place I read. Guess I’ll have to dump this one later. C’mon! Let’s go stupid thing!” Chuck’s eyes gave away the urgency that they had to leave. 

Nines’ came to his senses and looked over at Gavin one final time before Chuck started dragging him away. He started keeping up with him as he and Jasper chatted about further deals in the elevator. Every part of Nines wanted to just kill the leader then and there and run back up to get to Gavin again. But he managed to keep his cool as they left, getting in the van before Chuck while he said goodbye to his fake friend.

They started driving back down the long driveway and the second they were let out of the gate, Nines became animated again. He pounded a dent in the dashboard of the van and gritted his teeth, internally screaming since he still couldn’t use his voice. Both vans met back up at the police station and Chuck got out quickly before Nines.

“Your fucking android has been wrecking the inside of the van the whole way back! He’s gone crazy! What the fuck happened?” Chuck accosted Connor first and then Kamski.

Connor ran past the human operative to catch Nines in his arms and Kamski ran after them.

“He deviated…” Connor held his other model by the shoulders as he silently wept, synthetic tears falling down his cheeks.

It was a terrifying sight for the rest of them to see their usually stoic coworker in tears. Kamski managed to turn his voice back on which instantly kicked in to vocalize the sobs he was mouthing.

“You fucking deviated in the middle of the mission?! You better have gotten the info we needed!” Chuck screamed at him, it echoing off the parking lot walls.

Hank immediately grabbed Chuck and pulled him away from Nines and stood between the two.

“He got us all the info we needed, okay calm your shit. Yelling at him isn’t going to make things better,” Hank spat and took the man to the van to review the information to get him away from them. 

Nines managed to calm down with help from Connor, disconnecting from his counterpart once he felt stable enough. It wasn’t the best situation to deviate in and the rush of emotions was too much for him to handle all at once. While Nines and Connor kneeled on the parking lot floor, artificial breathing heavy, Kamski removed the chip and changed his settings back to what they were before. Nines seemed to find extra comfort in this and climbed to his feet again, LED at a steady yellow. Connor led him upstairs back to his desk followed by the humans who were discussing the intel they received rapidly. Nines collapsed in his chair while the others started to report to Fowler for him, Connor staying by his side. Plans were being made around Nines’ desk which he heard but didn’t focus on just yet. All he knew was that he irrefutably had to save Gavin or die trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for such a long chapter! You can follow my twitter of the same username for more updates!


	4. Retrieval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the clock struck 4am, Nines and Connor were off.

“Gavin isn’t going to survive much longer. We need to build a task force and a strike team in the next 4 hours to make a move tomorrow night,” Fowler said to the group after the full briefing, “We’re going to need to send in a team to retrieve Reed as well as flush the building out to make arrests. Reed is the priority, of course, so he will need to be out of that building before we move in. Someone fast needs to go in.”

Nines looked up, stood, and declared, “I’ll go.”

Instantly he was met with opposition, especially from Hank and Connor. 

“Nines, you just deviated. You need to rest and maybe work out your feelings!” Connor took his hand and held it tight.

“Besides, you’re too close to this. Gavin’s safety is the top priority. Don’t be a hero kid,” Hank folded his arms and sat next to Nines on his desk.

Not going on this mission was absolutely not an option. He had to be the one to go in and he had to be the one to carry Gavin out of that cell. The Detective had to be in his arms as soon as possible. Every ounce of Nines’ immense processing power was devoted to saving his partner. The memory of him calling out the android’s name played again in his mind and it was even worse now that he was a deviant. The sound soaked down through his whole body and he visibly shivered.

“No. I will be the one to retrieve Detective Reed,” Nines words could have become law that very instant.

Captain Fowler looked at Chuck who shook his head in protest. Hank’s gaze dropped to the floor as he tried to put himself in the other’s position. The Lieutenant would absolutely do the same for Connor if he were in trouble like that. Hell, he would die for the boy but Connor didn’t need to know that.

“I will go with him.” Connor let go of Nines’ hand and turned toward the group.

Hank stood up and waved his hands in protest.

“Hell no. If something happens, I will not lose my partner AND his twin. Fuck that.” Hank looked at all of them as if he were challenging them to speak up and then turned his gaze to Connor.

The android adjusted his tie and looked up at Hank with a firm look, “Hank, I’m the only other person who has seen the layout of the building through Nines’ memories. Besides, sending in a human would be more dangerous than sending in two androids.”

“Connor! Your lives matter just as much as ours! Just ‘cause you're an android doesn’t mean you’re expendable!” Hank grabbed him by the lapels and snarled at him like a rabid dog but Connor’s face remained calm.

“Lieutenant, I am sure you have seen Connor in fights. He would be much more equipped to deal with combat than anyone else in this precinct. I am programmed with more combat experience than he is so it would be imperative for both of us to go in case we are met with resistance,” Nines looked over at Hank and raised his hand to gently push the grip on Connor’s jacket away.

That bastard was right, of course. Connor was an unstoppable machine when it came to combat so Hank could only imagine what Nines was like.

“If any of them get damaged, I can be on hand to repair them. After all, they are risking everything to bring my brother back alive,” Kamski offered and the group seemed to be surprised he was still there.

“The main goal is not to get damaged but surely having the very creator of androids on standby will quell your worries, Hank.” A hand placed itself on the man’s shoulder and he sighed.

There was no winning with these two was there? Captain Fowler huffed and placed his hands on his hips, swaying his hand between the two androids.

“Fine, they can go but they will be wearing officer uniforms with vests. Spare no safety precaution, understood?”

Chuck protested but Fowler shut him up by directing him to his office to talk privately. Connor had an officer uniform made for him when he was hired by the force but rarely wore it since he preferred his little suit. Nines would have to have one made for him which wasn’t hard given that he and Connor were exactly the same physically. Patty, the reception android, returned from downstairs with the uniform almost immediately after she left. It had “Nines” printed on it since he didn’t have a last name.

Hours passed as their strike team was being built. SWAT was called in, the precinct being overrun by officers and agents. Nines and Connor were taken to the indoor range in the basement to be tested. Stationary, moving, and very distant targets were offered to them and they did not miss one head shot. Chuck seemed to be satisfied with this and finally left them alone.

Their plan was simple. In the dead of night in the cover of darkness, the abandoned prison would be completely surrounded by officers, ambulances waiting on standby for Gavin and any others who were injured. Once Nines and Connor entered the building, they would be monitored through the building’s cameras and Kamski would have their vitals displayed on a monitor in ne of the vehicles. The boys would retrieve Gavin and, hopefully, get out without anyone noticing. Once Gavin was secure outside, the rest of the operatives would tear gas the place and storm it to make as many arrests as they could. It seemed simple enough but tensions were high as they all headed out that night to begin their stakeout. All of their stress levels were high, especially Nines and Connor was worried for him. He still didn’t approve of his younger self going into such a situation so soon after deviating. But then again, Connor had an entire revolution to help lead just after deviating so he couldn’t really talk. Nonetheless, he would support Nines the best he could after all this was over because having Marcus to talk about feelings and emotions was very helpful after the revolution.

Connor, Nines, and Hank rode with Kamski and Chuck in a dark van and not one word was spoken throughout the entire drive until the van was put into park in a dark part of an alley a block away from the driveway to the prison. In the distance through the windshield they could see another van with their captain inside positioned like them in darkness. Ambulances were positioned about a mile away on call for the signal to move in to take Gavin and any officers that were wounded during their operation. Squad cars hid behind buildings and SWAT hid in the darkness ready to move the second Gavin was safe outside.

Connor, Nines, Hank, and Chuck all exited the vehicle, leaving Kamski inside for safety purposes. Chuck left them alone and went to retrieve their weapons and Hank pulled the boys aside.

“Look, both of you stay safe in there, you hear me? That is a direct order from your superior officer. Don’t do anything stupid or reckless.” Hank’s brows were tightly knitted and his jaw was tight.

“Understood,” Nines nodded feeling a bit sorry for the man, worrying so much about him.

Connor just simply smiled at his partner and caressed his face with his palm.

“Con, if you don’t come back I’m gonna be fucking pissed.” Hank’s voice shook just ever so slightly.

“You know I’ll return, Hank.” He placed a kiss on his cheek gently and smiled his signature warm grin.

“I love you, Con. Go get ‘em.” Hank returned the grin and pulled him into a tight embrace, Connor pulling back to kiss his partner deeply.

The sight warmed Nines’ whole body and yet made him long for physical affection like that. But he told himself in due time and reminded himself that was why they were here.

Chuck cleared his throat in impatience and the two men separated rather quickly, Connor fixing his tie under his vest. Both of them were handed their weapons. The two both had pistols with an extra magazine just in case. Connor was given a rifle that he was instructed not to use unless necessary to give Nines cover. The androids were also instructed not to kill any of the gang members because the department wanted all of them alive to be responsible for their crimes. Death was too easy for these men.

When the clock struck 4am, Nines and Connor were off. The cameras in the back by the loading dock were hacked remotely by Kamski to display the same image of an empty space while the boys scaled the fence. They snuck up to the door and Nines put in the passcode he managed to see when they first infiltrated the building. 2-3-8-9 and they were in, silently making their way across the gutted floor. So far, they remained unseen as they moved past the elevator to the door to the stairwell. The elevator let out in the middle of a hallway of their most populated floor so that was definitely not an option. From Nines understanding, not many people took the stairs so after it was empty and cleared, they started ascending them. Gavin was on the top floor in a cell almost on the opposite side of the building from the stairs so they would have to be extra careful.

Using their more sensitive hearing and attempting to detect any heat displacement from the other side of the door, they managed to figure out someone was standing by it. The smell of a cigarette was faintly wafting through the crack under the door. Connor wordlessly communicated to Nines his preconstructed plan and while the older android swung open the door, the younger twin took the man in such a tight sleeper hold that he silently fell limp in his arms. The body was put in the stairwell in a position as if he fell asleep against the wall in case any other person saw him. 

There were faint voices coming from another room by the elevator and other voices talking down the hallway opposite them. Based on the layout of the floor, the two could go to the right away from the voices and make a left to take a roundabout way to Gavin’s cell. There were several rooms made out of knocked out cells along the way so before advancing past each one, they made sure no one would see them as well as making sure to keep moving as quickly as possible. They were in the heart of the lion’s den and had no time to waste.

Based on the voice patterns, they concluded that no one was in the immediate lounge area around Gavin’s cell but there were people in the very next room with the door open. They needed a distraction to get them to either look the other way or close the door. Peeking around the corner, most of them were surrounding a laptop facing away from them but two men were lounging on a couch perpendicular to the two android’s positions. They were on their phones but they could easily look up and to the side and see the boys move across the room. After both of them preconstructing their options, they finally decided. Nines had Kamski hack into the computer they were all watching a video game playthrough on to suddenly play very loud porn at top volume. It was a gamble but it worked. The two on their phones looked up and started heckling the computer viewers, getting up to look away at the screen. One of the gang members started cursing at them and they seemed adequately distracted for the boys to rush across the room to hide by the corner of the cell. The room was dimly lit so it helped conceal their presence but the distraction would only last until the gang members figured out it wasn’t a popup.

Connor managed to pick the lock on Gavin’s cell rather quickly and held the rifle at attention to cover Nines while he entered to retrieve the captive.

Nines immediately assessed Reed’s condition. He was naked, passed out on the floor in a crumpled shaking ball. Cuts and bruises littered his body with a few new cuts on his chest from last night. Breathing was very heavy and his heart rate was high for being unconscious. His body temperature was high as well for someone who was so very thin. Gavin must have lost at least 15 percent of his weight in the last two weeks. Then he remembered that his partner was forcefully given Red Ice and these symptoms, along with many others, matched with Gavin’s current state.

Connor caught his attention and brought him out of his assessment. The men were getting louder and more frustrated. They needed to speed things up.

Nines kneeled down and very gently took Gavin in his arms. It felt amazing to the android to hold him after not being near him for so long. The human stirred and raised his head slightly, eyes struggling to force themselves open. When they focused on Nines, he let out a weak gasp which the android hushed with a finger to his lips. 

“Nines?” A feeble whisper, barely audible yet desperate and hopeful, came from Gavin.

The aforementioned android nodded and placed his hand over his partner’s mouth when he started to cry. They had to keep quiet even though Nines wanted to rejoice. He was here in his arms and he couldn’t tell him how glad he was to see him. It almost felt unfair. Then, suddenly, the audio that was keeping the members occupied stopped. It seemed they figured out to stop the virus and suddenly the voices sounded much louder. Connor and Nines looked at each other and the latter hoisted the tearful Gavin into his grip and they made a break for the hallway. As they ran, they heard shouting following them. Their cover was blown.

The sounds of guns cocking pushed them to dart around the corner quickly and shots entered the wall behind them. This of course summoned all the men on the floor, and possibly the whole building. Some reached for their phones, some reached for their guns. Two men tried to clothesline Connor but he ducked and came up to deck one in the face, sending him flying. For the other man, Nines swung Gavin’s feet to kick him in the nose hard enough for it to break. Once those men were down, they rounded the corner by the stairs and were met with 3 more men who were armed. Connor’s LED turned yellow and he got to work. With one foot, he broke the man who was closest to Nines’ kneecap while simultaneously using the back of his rifle to knock out the man who was about to fire at them. Nines took the initiative and rammed the other man before he could aim at them into the stairway door, slamming it open and sending him over the railing 3 stories down to his assumed death. One casualty wasn’t terrible especially if it meant keeping Gavin safe.

They tore down the stairs, getting cut off on the second floor by gunfire. Connor and Nines ducked into a hallway on the second floor which seemed to remain reminiscent of the prison floor. Cells lined the walls in numerous long hallways and they managed to lose their persuants for the time being. The problem was now how they were going to get down to the first floor without risking their safety as well as Gavin’s. As they hid by the corner of a walkway between cells, a voice startled them and made them spin around.

“Gotcha.”

It was none other than the leader of The Red Devils, Jasper Broadside accompanied by another man. Both were armed and grinning as if they were looking at a finely caught meal. Nines took a step forward but Jasper pointed his gun at him making him retreat back to his original position.

“Nope. We got you this time. You make any sudden moves and I kill your detective.” His tone suddenly turned serious and both the android’s mouths pressed into a thin line.

“I mean, you two aren’t getting out of here alive either but we would like to keep our pet,” The other man said earning a sound of approval from Jasper.

The leader motioned for Nines to hand over Gavin and his grip on him tightened. He would be damned if he let go of the one he loved. The Detective’s grip on Nines’ sleeve tightened as well and tears started to well up in his eyes again.

“Gimmie him or I will fucking kill him right now.”

There wasn’t much of a choice. One wrong move and Gavin could die. So he gently set the man down to his feet even as he pleaded for him not to. Once he was standing, Jasper grabbed him in a choke hold with his pistol to Gavin’s head. The other man commanded Connor to drop his rifle with a wave of his gun and Connor hesitantly complied. Once the gun was on the ground, the man grabbed Connor in a similar way with his gun to the android’s head. 

“Now you get one choice. It’s your boyfriend or your twin,” Jasper offered through a sneer, “You gotta pick one. Someone is dying right now.”

Nines started to panic.

Hank’s words for Connor to come back alive rang through his ears. It was either Nines’ love or Hank’s love. Either he could shoot Jasper to save The Detective but let Connor die or shoot the man to save Connor but let The Detective die. The choice was racking his brain. There had to be another way. Connor and Gavin looked so terrified. His LED started spinning red.

“Well? Pick you bitch!” Jasper shoved the barrel of his gun in his hostage’s face and Gavin whimpered.

Connor suddenly looked at Nines with determination, silently telling him to shoot Jasper. Before Nines could object, Connor screamed at him through their shared channel just as Jasper was about to make his choice for him. He rapidly turned to Jasper and, with perfect aim, shot the gun out of his hand. The man holding Connor pulled the trigger only the older android had reacted impossibly fast so the bullet landed in his shoulder instead of his head. In the time where Connor stumbled forward, Nines then put a round into the gang member’s knee which sent him to the ground screaming. Jasper shoved Gavin towards Nines and went for his gun but Connor took out his pistol and shot him directly in the hand.

As Jasper writhed on the ground, Nines held Gavin to his chest and aimed at his head. Killing him would bring him absolute pleasure.

“Nines, no! We need him alive!” Connor pushed the gun away from the gang leader with one hand while the other held his damaged shoulder.

He was right but Nines took aim again. Killing the bastard who defiled and injured his partner ran through his mind on a loop and he even preconstructed it 10 times before Connor physically shook him out of it. 

Death was too easy after all. 

Jasper started to get up again and Nines brought his gun down so hard to his head that the gang leader skidded across the hall into a cell. He was out cold and then some. The android picked Gavin up again and held him close and the man buried his face in his chest, desperate for physical contact. He needed to get out of there and tend to his human.

The boys and Gavin went for a different door opposite the stairway they used to get into the building. Connor covered Nines as he kicked down the door, returning some of the shots fired at them. Of course they landed in non lethal places so they could arrest them later. They shut the door behind them and hopped down the stairs as quickly and carefully as they could to not injure Gavin any further. Once they were at the floor they needed, Connor tried kicking the door down because it was locked but had no effect on it. Since it led to the outside, the lock on it was much more sturdy and upon inspection, it had a pinpad on the side. Connor tried the code they used to enter the building but it failed. Nines could hear the door burst open one floor above them and shouting echoing in the concrete stairway. There were no prints on the pad except on the 1 key so Connor had to very quickly run it through his processors. 

The sound of a shot rang out and Nines quickly turned his body towards the wall to protect Gavin. A sharp pain resounded in his back and he figured he had been shot. Another round entered his back and he stumbled forward to lean against the wall making a sandwich of the man in his arms. Gavin cried out and held onto Nines tight, hitting his chest with one hand for hurting himself protecting him. Both of them had gotten hurt because of Gavin and he felt as guilty as he could while experiencing withdrawal and starvation induced delirium.

“Connor, please!” Gavin shouted as a third round hit Nines in the arm close to his face.

Connor’s LED stopped spinning yellow to red and instantly went blue when he entered in the correct combination. The door swung open and he took Nines by the shoulder and helped him hobble out to run across the empty parking lot towards their fellow officers. They both radioed the van with their captain in it with the message that Gavin was secure and as soon as they stepped foot onto the street, the entire scene came alive.

Sirens blared and at least 50 police and SWAT officers started storming the building. The ambulance’s tires screeched as it pulled up next the van just as Kamksi, Hank, and Chuck exited the vehicle. Nines held onto Gavin as he fell to his knees in front of them, struggling to keep balance with the man in his arms. Kamski immediately saw that they were wounded and went back to grab his tools while Hank started fretting over both of the androids. The emotional and physical stress seemed to be getting to Gavin and he started losing consciousness. The EMT’s came running and tried to take Gavin from Nines but he held onto him tight. His Thirium levels were getting dangerously low but he needed to be with The Detective.

“I’m going with him…” The android muttered and looked up at Kamski who had a bag in his hands.

“You're not going anywhere, you’re damaged,” Hank waved the EMT back to try and take Gavin again but Nines only tightened his grip. He would be damned if he would be separated from his partner.

“He can ride with him in the ambulance but I have to stabilize him,” Kamski stated looking on in horror of his brother’s state, “There is no point in Nines dying before Gavin recovers.”

Nines seemed to understand and he nodded, letting go of Gavin to have him taken to the ambulance. While the human was getting set up for transport, Kamski managed to quickly close up the android’s bullet wounds so he wouldn’t leak Thirium until he could really get to repair him. Elijah handed him a bag of the blue liquid to take with him. Once the both of them were stable enough for transport, Nines shrugged Hank off of him and went straight to Gavin, climbing into the back of the ambulance with him. He looked back to Connor who was being treated for his damage and thanked him through their private channel to which his elder self cracked a smile in understanding.

Seeing Gavin laying there as they screamed down the streets shook Nines. The oxygen mask on his face, an IV in his arm, and the EMT’s treating his open wounds. He kept having to tell himself that they were on their way to get his partner some help as he sucked on the bag of Thirium. Nines finished the bag just as they pulled up to the hospital. He flashed his badge to follow Gavin into the emergency room where he was given a room immediately. His bleeding was stopped so he wasn’t in immediate danger and his condition was already given to the doctor before they even got there. 

Several nurses rushed in and gave him a few shots to treat him for the drug overdose he was currently suffering through, similar to Fixer, to flush out his system. Gavin’s consciousness faded in and out and he vomited several times from the nausea but Nines was right there with him, sitting by his bed silently holding his hand. Every second he was monitoring his condition even though he was hooked up to a machine. Not that he could do anything but until Gavin was back to his regular self, he would be watching him carefully.

Several hours passed with many nurses and doctors coming in to talk to Nines or attempt to talk to Reed even though he remained unresponsive, yet stable. Considering the massive amount of trauma his mind and body just went through, it wasn’t a surprise. But his hand remained protectively around his partner’s secretly keeping track of his pulse which was becoming less rapid as the drugs were administered. Finally after 5 hours, his whole body seemed more relaxed which made the android relax as well.

Finally, Connor peeked around the doorframe which was a welcome sight for Nines. They must have finally finished all the arrests and were allowed to leave the scene. He was followed in by Hank and then Kamski who stayed behind in the doorway. He looked like he was seeing his brother’s corpse and Nines was confused as to why he didn’t look more relieved. But Hank started speaking which refocused his attention.

“How is he?” A polite question to break the silence.

“He is finally stable and his vitals are normal although he hasn’t been cognitively responsive to any stimulus so far. They expect him to regain consciousness after his body and mind rest,” Nines explained as Hank plopped into a chair and Connor sat on the arm of it next to him.

Kamski looked down and sat on the other side of the room by the door and looked on at them as he tuned into their conversation. It was strange that he hadn’t said anything.

“How are you doing, Nines?” Connor chimed in and tilted his head staring at him.

Nines glanced back to Gavin then back to the others, “Adequate enough. Some of my systems are still damaged but there is no immediate need to repair them.”

Kamski finally snapped back to reality and ran his hand over the bag he had over his shoulder in the chair. His vacant expression was difficult for the androids to read but he finally spoke in a reserved tone.

“I can finish repairing you if you desire; I brought my tools.” His long fingers delicately grasped the zipper but Nines shook his head.

“I will be alright. Perhaps when Gavin wakes up.”

Elijah nodded and shifted his vision back to his brother regaining his solemn silence. There was a pause and Connor felt it with Hank. Not appreciating it, The Lieutenant cleared his throat and clapped a hand on his knee.

“The whole operation was a success thanks to you two. Other than some minor injuries, all our guys made it out alive and made a record breaking amount of arrests. We had to get a bus to transport all the gang members for processing.” Hank informed him, which Nines appreciated since he wasn’t there to see it.

“Did you get him? Broadside?”

“Yes. Hank personally arrested him. The guy had to be dragged out of the building because of the head trauma you gave him. It did make it easier and less of a risk,” Connor took over for Hank, “I saw him get put in a separate car with The Captain. I imagine he was taken to a hospital but with an escort.”

Nines wanted to personally interrogate him but knew he had to stay with Gavin. Hopefully Captain Fowler would be the one to do it and as intensely as possible. It would have been a pleasure.

“Connor was getting fixed up so he didn’t get much of the action. Chuck had a damn field day when he found out how he got hurt,” Hank glared at Connor and then at Nines, “The two of you are gonna fucking kill me one day. Especially you Connor. Being held as a hostage and sacrificing yourself to take a bullet for the team! You’re both lucky as hell you survived.”

Connor looked guilty but it seemed he had already got his lecture possibly on the way over there to the hospital. Nines felt guilty for worrying them but did count himself as lucky. He took 3 bullets and none managed to damage him severely. The worst thing was that he lost a lot of Thirium but thanks to Kamski, he survived it. Repairs were being recommended to him but he pushed them to the side.

They chatted for about 2 hours before a nurse came in to let them know visiting hours were ending in an hour. Kamski was allowed to stay since he was legal family but Nines was asked to leave with the rest of them. Hank knew that wouldn’t happen so he pulled rank and ordered Nines to stand guard over Reed through the night which the hospital had to accept. After all, Gavin was a police detective. Nines thanked him as he left with Connor and sat back in his spot by the bed, taking Gavin’s hand again.

There was a long uncomfortable silence before Kamski finally broke it well into the night.

“Look, Nines, I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean?” The android looked up at Elijah who looked worn and tired.

“I should apologise to you. I put you through all this because of sibling bickering. Your stress, your deviance, and your injuries…”

Nines shook his head, “I’m not the one you should apologise to. Nothing I went through compares to what your brother went through.”

A jolt of guilt ran through the inventor and he looked down to the floor. Nines didn’t really resent the man for what he did but Gavin did deserve an apology. The Detective did rush out and do something very reckless but Nines would never put the blame on him for all that had happened. The situation was complicated but for Gavin’s sake, blame would be left on the leader, Jasper.

“I’m sorry Gavin… but you probably can’t hear me. I feel like I’ll be apologising to you the rest of my life. I know we didn’t have the best relationship and I know I caused that but still. If you even want to see me after you recover. If not, I’ll understand.” The thin line of Elijah’s mouth and the strain of his eyes told Nines he was holding back tears.

“Mr. Kamski, despite your argument, this is not your fault. I do not know Gavin as well as you, but I don’t believe he would hold this against you.” Nines wasn’t the best with comforting people but he made an effort.

The older sibling concealed a sniffle and stood, patting his younger brother’s other hand. It wasn’t like such a powerful man to get emotional so this was a very raw moment and Nines stayed quiet. Kamski didn’t say anything and exited the room, presumably to let his emotions out in private. Nines felt bad for him but kept his own emotions at bay for the time being. He couldn’t get distracted.

Elijah came back a short while later and they sat in silence again until the human fell asleep in his chair. Nines needed to rest too, to enter stasis, but he couldn’t let himself do anything other than watch his partner’s chest subtly move up and down with each breath the rest of the night.

 

The morning finally came streaming into the large window, waking up Kamski. Several nurses came in to check up on their patient who was still unconscious. There was talk in the hall of Reed being in a light coma which pushed Nines’ stress levels high but he remained hopeful. It was all he could do.

Elijah returned with breakfast from the cafe downstairs once it opened. The android had been getting updates from Connor about how the arrests were going. The whole operation had gotten a lot of media attention and Hank along with their captain had been trying to keep Reed’s location a secret. Jasper had woken up and was discharged from the hospital back to the police precinct and they were set to interrogate him in a few hours. Nines wished them luck and gave updates on The Detective’s condition in return.

It became almost noon when a small twitch in Nines’ hand snapped his vision back to reality. At first, he thought it could have been an error but another small twitch from Gavin’s fingers told him otherwise. Nines sat up quickly which Kamski noticed and when the android told him, he stood to go get the doctor. By the time he got back, Gavin’s eyes were fluttering open in a hazy glossy look.

Nines wanted to stand up and take him his arms and spin around but held himself together. Once gavin’s motor functions returned and he could move his head, he looked over at his hand, following the arm up to Nines’ face. A small smile pulled at his mouth and a very quiet hoarse “hey” escaped his lips. The android couldn’t control his emotions and artificial tears ran down his face as he placed a kiss on the other’s hand. Gavin turned his head to see his brother standing with the doctor, holding back tears with his hand over his mouth. He didn’t say anything to his older brother but the smile remained so Kamski took it as a good thing.

After a quick once over by the doctor, they determined he could start having liquid foods and left to put in an order for him. They had to start slow of course since he hadn’t had food for two weeks. Nines wiped away the tears with his sleeve of his uniform and Gavin let out a breath which he assumed was supposed to be a laugh.

“Looks good on you,” he commented about the official police uniform Nines was in as opposed to his usual shirt and jacket combination with his serial number on it.

It just felt good to hear him speaking again and Nines smiled, looking down at himself. It was dirty and had Thirium all over it but he took the compliment.

When the nurse came in with the food, Nines took it and helped feed it to Gavin since he was so weak. Applesauce was a good start and he seemed to want it which was a good sign. After he ate, Reed’s head turned back to his brother and he simply stared at him. It wasn’t quite fondness but it wasn’t hatred either. Kamski cleared his throat and spoke once the three were alone again.

“Uh, Gav…”

“I know. You’re sorry.” Gavin stole the thought out of his head.

“I am. I’m sorry for saying such harsh things to you. They weren’t true in any way and I didn’t need to put you through that.” Kamski looked away and fidgeted with his shirt hem.

“I know. I’m a pain in the ass, I’ll cop to that,” Gavin started to almost sound sarcastic but changed his tone, “I know and I’m sorry too. For yelling back at you and going off to do something stupid.”

“This wasn’t you or your brother’s fault, Gavin…” Nines started but Gavin interrupted him.

“Yeah, well. Doesn’t matter. I accept your apology. Truce?”

Kamski looked like he was slapped in the face. Usually Gavin wasn’t the type to forgive at all but his experience seemed to have changed him unexpectedly for the better in that respect. Not that it invalidated his trauma of course. He still had a lot to process and Nines had a suspicion that it all hadn’t hit Gavin yet. Of course he would have remaining mental side-effects from the experience. The doctor had already talked about having him see a therapist.

“Truce.”

It was good enough for now and Nines smiled. The path to recovery wouldn’t be easy but he would do all he could for the one he loved no matter what happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't know, Fixer is from Fallout and is used to cure addiction instantly. I adapted it here to cure an overdose because DBH is set in the future and would probably have such technology. If you got the reference, let me know!  
> I've equated Red Ice to Meth so the symptoms are used as if they were the same.  
> I keep adding chapters because this is getting so long, so thanks for staying! One more to go!


	5. Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After all, recovery is not linear.

It had been a full two and a half weeks before Gavin was even considered to be released from the hospital. Hank, Connor, Kamski, Chloe, Captain Fowler, Chuck, and even Tina Chen came to make at least one visit to The Detective, the core group coming in more often than the others. Nines never once left Reed’s side and only stopped watching him when he inevitably had to go into stasis for his own health. During the time of his stay, many police officers also came in for statements and sometimes brought news about the arrests. Luckily Gavin’s captain had managed to keep the media far away from the case and from The Detective since that was the last thing he needed.

The starvation and thus change in metabolism had made it difficult for The Detective to adapt to a normal calorie diet once more. When he was first brought into the hospital, he had barely any strength to even eat anything but managed to do well while he was staying there. He could stand and walk down the hallway without assistance and Nines made sure Gavin knew how proud of him he was. Most of his wounds had healed over with minimal scarring, just around his wrists where the cuffs sliced into them and the major gash on his chest from a knife were the large and obvious scars. The others blended in with some of the ones he acquired on duty.

The struggle with the forced addiction he acquired was difficult as well, hindering his recovery at the beginning. After they flushed the man’s system a few times, his symptoms had subsided enough to be able to function at the very least. The symptom of decreasing the feeling of hunger seemed to work in Gavin’s favor though while he was held captive so he didn’t suffer as much. The drug had been giving him insomnia in the hospital, which the doctors were worried about lasting after he was released. Gavin didn’t sleep much in the first place though since he usually worked himself to death so it wasn’t a big change.

The Detective’s mental health was the main concern though. After going through a vicious kidnapping, daily rape, torture, being a hostage, and violent rescue the man wouldn’t be the same. The doctors knew this and had a psychologist in his room every day to assess him. Reed still seemed to be in shock of the whole ordeal and didn’t say much except when he explained small details occasionally. Both Nines and Gavin’s brother were worried he was bottling it all up and it would eventually explode. The man was never one to show his feelings and it seemed to be coming through when they heard him speak to the doctor.

During the 18 days his partner was in the hospital, Nines had downloaded every single program he thought would help Gavin when he went home. Physical therapy assistant, home caretaker, personal trainer, and chef programs were downloaded with the access Kamski gave him to the cloud collection by CyberLife. Even psychological support programs were then imbedded in the android’s brain and he was perhaps more qualified to help Gavin than the human doctor who visited the room. Nines wanted to make sure that everything was going to be perfect for his partner when he was finally released.

On the 19th day since his admittance, he was to be released. He was brought clothes to replace his hospital gown and Nines told Connor and Hank who went to ready Gavin’s apartment for his return. After all, the home had sat empty for more than a month. Kamski was there with Nines as Gavin was wheeled out of the hospital doors towards the car his brother had brought for them. The sun warmed Reed’s face and it reminded the man his lacking of that warmth. His gaze dropped and focused on his hands instead as he was rolled up to the loading ramp. Nines rubbed circles into his back, sensing his stress levels rise just a bit. Once Gavin was seated and Nines joined him in the back seat with Kamski up front next to Chloe driving, they started the drive to the apartment in downtown Detroit.

They arrived in a timely manner just as Connor informed Nines they had fixed up his apartment. The two met Gavin and company in the lobby and rode the rather old rickety elevator up to the 4th floor with them. Detective Reed’s apartment was not luxurious but he never needed luxury. Being freshly cleaned, it looked nice inside with mostly black leather and stainless steel being the theme of the one bedroom apartment. The place looked like something from an IKEA catalog with all the modern furniture just without as many decorations. His signature brown leather jacket, badge, and gun were recovered and laid neatly on the table in front of the couch. Nines made a note to hide his gun until he was deemed as mentally healthy as one could be with that kind of trauma. The android was instructed to watch him just in case he started to lose to himself and exhibit suicidal tendencies. This resounded in Nines’ mind, scaring him at the mere thought.

Gavin had shuffled over to the couch and, as time passed in their conversation about the case, grew more and more reserved. Finally he just remained quiet, cuddled up in a blanket around his shoulders. His gaze was drowning in his cup of orange juice that Nines had forced upon him when he sat down. Connor and Hank didn’t stay long after that, feeling they should give him some space since it had gotten awkwardly silent. They said their goodbyes as well as Kamski and Chloe soon after that as well. The sun was setting and the apartment was quiet. Gavin looked like a statue save for his slow blinks and it was worrying Nines. The android gently took the cup of juice from him and set on his table, joining him on the couch very close so their thighs touched.

“How are you feeling, Gavin?” Nines asked softly and his human set his head on the android’s shoulder.

“Okay.” It was short and too soft for Nines to believe him.

“You know I ask that genuinely, not to patronise you. I want you to tell me the truth, even if you don’t want to okay? I’m not keeping tabs on you, I just genuinely want to know.” The android had done countless research on how to help trauma victims in a way that they would feel comfortable.

Gavin seemed to resonate with that and nodded against Nines’ shoulder.

“Uh… then I guess, not great.” He sat up with effort and tucked his legs under each other on the couch.

“Alright. Would you like to go to bed? I could put on the television or a movie for you instead?”

Gavin shrugged and stayed quiet, gaze not really seeing anything in front of him. Nines’ mouth formed a thin line. He turned on the TV to display the channel he was watching last and it played mindless commercials. Gavin looked up but his eyes didn’t focus on them. It seemed that the human was last watching the news because once the commercials ended, a reporter standing in front of a courthouse started speaking about the gang who assaulted him. Gavin grimaced and Nines saw, instantly turning the channel to something else.

“Perhaps a movie then…”

He went through Gavin’s streaming accounts to find something either distracting or mind numbing for him to watch that wouldn’t trigger any memories. He settled on a cartoon about a princess, demon, and an elf. Returning to his spot next to Gavin, he placed an arm around the man and they cuddled up next to each other. Nines didn’t watch it, slyly monitoring his partner, but the human seemed to be distracted enough by it. 

After about 5 episodes, Gavin had started drifting off to sleep. Of course he would be tired, going outside for the first time. Nines shifted as carefully as he could to pick The Detective up bridal style to take him to be put to bed. Once he was under his blankets and sufficiently snuggled up in them, Nines placed a light kiss on his hair and turned the light off to go back into the living room. The door was left open a crack and the TV was turned off so the android could hear if Gavin needed anything or started fretting. He stood in the kitchen, leaning against the island and began to plan out a list of items for his partner’s meals that week. 

Nines thought of Gavin Reed and his feelings toward him. He had affection for the man, that he was sure of, but wondered what it was like loving someone. Connor had tried explaining it to him once and he said his understanding of it was still limited despite loving Lieutenant Anderson. He told him it was like a person became devoted to the happiness of another person and it made someone feel complete. Connor felt complete with Hank, not that he was missing anything. It was like a cup overflowing. Nines knew that he would die for Gavin and almost did which he equated to love as well. But when he told Lieutenant Anderson that, the older man simply smiled and asked him if he would live for his partner instead. This confused Nines at the time and still did.

Almost exactly 1 hour after he put Gavin to bed, the android was ripped out of his thoughts by screaming. Gavin was screaming bloody murder. Nines bolted into the bedroom to find his human writhing around on the bed as if he was fighting someone invisible, kicking and punching the air. Nines managed to dodge his fists so he wouldn’t get hit and he took him into his arms. He yelled over the screams a mantra of his name and assured him he would be okay repeatedly until the screams became whimpers. The android touched his face and he woke up suddenly taking in a heavy breath while he panted and looked around frantically, eyes coming to rest on the other’s face. It was only when he saw his partner that he calmed himself, clinging onto his jacket so tight Nines thought it might rip. Sweet words were whispered in his ear and in place of his gasps were sobs muffled into his shirt. Gavin seemed to have a trauma induced nightmare.

“P-Please don’t let them take me… I can’t…” The man hiccupped into the other’s shirt.

“Nothing will happen to you, Gavin. You’re safe now. Never again,” Nines reassured him and kissed his head repeatedly.

“Don’t leave me…” The words shot through Nines and his grip on the man tightened.

“I will never leave you. Would you like for me to sleep with you?” He asked and Gavin nodded timidly.

Connecting to the man’s voice assistant in the apartment, Nines turned off all the lights while simultaneously scooting Reed over to the middle of the bed to climb in with him under the blankets. He turned on his personal heating to simulate a human’s natural warmth and held Gavin to his chest. The android had no need for comfort but this felt nice and he thought he could get used to it, sleeping with his partner. Gavin instantly calmed and got quiet, breathing stabilizing back to normal. 

The rest of the night was fairly quiet, only a few times Gavin seemed to stir but Nines quelled his panic with sweet words and chaste kisses to his face. Nines didn’t have a chance to enter stasis for fear of not being able to help the man in his arms if he needed it. The lack of stasis these past weeks was taking a toll on Nines but there was an obvious priority. In the dim hours of the early morning, Nines LED flickered yellow as he attempted to do a short burst of maintenance on himself without fully entering the comatose-like state of stasis. Connor has suggested this approach when Gavin was in the hospital and it had seemed to be working for the time being. Leaving his partner alone wasn’t an option at that time. The maintenance brought up some errors even from when he deviated that he just never dealt with. There was much work to be done on himself. Perhaps if Kamski came over with Chloe, they could keep Gavin company while he worked on himself.

A small stir of the man in his arms caught his attention. The Detective seemed to be waking up and Nines checked the time. His thoughts had wandered for almost an hour. It was time for breakfast. The android let Gavin go slowly when his hands came up to rub his eyes. They were red from such violently disturbed sleep and Nines made a note to buy him eye drops. The human looked up at him and then away to the door concealing the bathroom. Nines got up out of bed and helped his partner upright, leading him to the door frame where he let him take care of himself. Moving to the kitchen to start Gavin’s breakfast, Nines put on a pot of coffee. Reed wasn’t supposed to have coffee quite yet but since he had such a hard night, perhaps he deserved it. The smell of the brewing pot brought the human out of the room and cracked a smile in his seemingly permanently broken expression. After eggs, toast, and coffee were made, they sat in silence while he ate slowly. The caffeine seemed to perk Gavin up which was a relief, especially after the night he had. Not one word was spoken about it though but Nines was patient. When he was ready to talk, he would.

At the android’s request, Kamski came over to visit Gavin with his Chloe at lunchtime. The Detective paused his show when they entered but remained bundled up in a knitted blanket on the couch. Chloe’s warm smile and greeting seemed to bring out a small smile in the man. It was good that she came for she immediately took over what Nines was doing. He told Gavin he was going to go into stasis in the other room which brought that insecure look over his features but his brother came to sit with him on the couch in reassurance. Once he was gone, Elijah turned to Gavin and looked at him inquisitively.

“How are you feeling?” He felt awkward asking, not usually being the type for small talk.

“What about you?” Gavin decided to turn the question back to him to avoid the subject and Kamski frowned.

It wasn’t like he was the brother of the year but he still cared about the other.

“Busy. The media has seemed to latch onto the fact I came out of seclusion to aid on your case so I have been dodging interview attempts left and right.” Elijah realised he had taken the conversation into a dangerous place so he stopped speaking.

“Sorry for putting you back in the spotlight. I know you hate that,” Gavin scoffed sarcastically.

Chloe glared at her partner and Kamski cleared his throat and changed the subject quickly. He never was good at talking to Gavin, especially as an adult.

“So your RK900, Nines,” He started and looked back to the bedroom door, “I never thought I would see the day my brother started living with an android.” Gavin’s mouth flattened into a thin line.

“He saved my life, Eli, what do you want me to say?” Reed pursed his lips and looked out his balcony.

“Do you love him?”

Gavin’s eyes widened. He swallowed hard and refused to look back at where the question came from. The memories of his captivity started creeping up on him and he remembered thinking about Nines the entire time. At first, perhaps, it was because he was his partner and the one who would be most likely to find him. But the thoughts of the others at the precinct slowly vanished until all he could think about was Nines. Gavin didn’t have much mental energy, if any at all, to think about his feelings for the android. He almost felt guilty, being so fond of him after treating him so badly in the beginning. It was of course his bias against androids and the man who created them but after the revolution it had started to creep away.

“He saved me. I feel safe with him. I don’t know…” 

And it was true, he didn’t know if it was quite love or if he felt indebted to him. Maybe it was a mixture of both. Elijah watched him and sighed.

“He deviated because of his feelings for you, you know,” Chloe was now next to them refreshing their coffee cups and elbowed Kamski in the shoulder but he continued to speak, “When he and that operative went undercover to find you, he almost blew their cover. Deviated right there next to your cell and almost risked the entire thing because of his desire to save you. I don’t know about you, but that seems like love to me.”

Gavin finally turned to look at his brother in shock. He knew Nines had deviated during the case but didn’t quite realise that it was due to something like that. Guilt started to wash over him even more so. All his life, he avoided romantic feelings with anyone, which is why he preferred one night stands to real relationships. It almost frightened him, having the commitment of someone risking their entire life because of their feelings for him. There was a conversation Nines and Gavin were going to have to have and it scared the human. He must have seemed visibly shaken for Elijah cleared his throat and looked to Chloe desperately for help. She scowled at her partner and then immediately put on a bright smile for Gavin, bringing over his medicines for it was time to take them.

“Gavin, don’t worry about Elijah. Take your medicines please, then we can watch a movie so your brother can keep his foot in his mouth.” Chloe grinned and Kamski looked away in embarrassment while Gavin chuckled.

 

About 1 whole movie and two more episodes of that cartoon he was watching later, Nines emerged from the bedroom and smiled when he saw Chloe, Gavin, and Kamski curled up on the couch together watching TV. Gavin looked up and smiled gently, holding his hand out to invite the android to join them. He scooted over and laid he head on his chest when Nines sat down. They all wordlessly glanced at each other fondly and continued watching the show until they finished the season finale.

It started getting well into the afternoon by the time they finished the next season. Connor and Hank couldn’t make it to visit that night but Gavin was content with that. Sometimes having more people around him didn’t always make him feel better. In fact he tired easily with normal conversations and ended up disassociating through most of them. He just didn’t have the mental fortitude to keep up with a conversation with more than 3 people in it.

Kamski and Chloe stayed for dinner and the two androids ended up cooking together. The two brothers didn’t say much to each other but they didn’t really need to. It wasn’t like they talked much before so it wasn’t as awkward as Nines perceived. In fact, Nines and Chloe ended up carrying their conversation around the dinner table with Kamski piping in occasionally. Gavin seemed tired and stayed quiet but the rest of them knew why so they didn’t force him to join in. Because of this, the inventor and his partner didn’t stay long and left shortly after they finished their food.

The nighttime seemed to make Gavin nervous, perhaps it reminded him of his dimly lit cell or just foreshadowed nightmares to come when he settled into sleep. Regardless, Nines seemed to catch on and was extra supportive towards his human partner to hopefully balance his worries out. The android walked with him to bed and didn’t even ask before climbing in under the sheets as well. Gavin was pulled to his chest and Kamski’s words echoed in his head. That Nines loved him. It sat heavy in his heart. He wanted to ask him for himself, to see what his reaction was but Gavin was too tired and cowardly to open his mouth. They settled in for sleep and the human drifted off rather quickly, his lack of strength getting the best of him. Only a few frets came through during the night which Nines managed to quell quickly so his sleep wasn’t interrupted.

This became routine for them. Gavin would try and work up the courage to talk to the android, literally being his teddy bear to cling to at night, about his feelings but he always chickened out and opted for sleep instead. This went on for two weeks before The Detective finally had enough and decided to say something. But when he was about to, Connor and Hank knocked at the door. Nines let them in and welcomed them yet Gavin was left to stew in his own frustration.

Hank leaned against the kitchen island and watched the other human carefully until he noticed his gaze and cocked his head. The Lieutenant sighed and chewed the inside of his cheek before he spoke.

“Fowler is wondering when or if you’re gonna come back to the force.”

Gavin swallowed hard. The question had been pushed to the back of his mind as he focused on recovering but it was a matter that needed to be addressed. He genuinely hadn’t decided when he was going to come back, if at all. Gavin joined the force with the intent on making it his career until he retired in old age or died on the field. Elijah had already made his mark on the world and he wanted to leave behind his own by becoming the youngest lieutenant in DPD history. It had been his dream since he was 18 and giving it up would throw his whole life into a spiral. Gavin had taken too long to answer so Connor spoke up for Hank.

“If you would like to take more time to decide, you would need to come into The Captain’s office to fill out a leave of absence form for however long you would need. You could also remain on desk duty and switch to active duty when you feel comfortable to do so provided you passed your mental evaluation.”

The idea of walking back into the precinct and feeling the stares from his fellow officers wasn’t exactly Gavin’s idea of a fun time but the other two were right. He had to decide and quickly. Either way, he would have to enter the building again and it made him shake. Nines noticed this and came to sit down next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I think… I should stay home for a little longer.” It killed him to say it but his partner looked almost relieved.

“We can arrange a time for you to go in while there aren’t many people in the building so you can fill out that form then. I will go with you, Gavin.” Nines reassured him.

“Speaking of you, Fowler wants you back at the station too. He knows you want to support Reed but he’s been pulling strings so you could stay with him. The strings have run out. You don’t have to work your full shifts but you have to catch up with your paperwork, starting Monday.” Hank frowned since he knew how important his role in Gavin’s recovery was but it wasn’t up to him.

Nines looked defeated and his gaze dropped to the floor. He knew this day would come but wasn’t looking forward to it. The android absolutely didn’t want to leave Gavin alone but also didn’t want to lose his job. He had nowhere to officially live and being a deviant he needed the money, especially to support his human partner while he wasn’t working. They decided that Nines would work his shift and when everyone started to go home, Gavin would meet him at the precinct to fill out the form. Afterwards, they would go back home together.

That night after Connor and Hank left, Gavin seemed very uneasy. He barely ate his dinner and sat in silence for the most part until he was ready for bed. Nines was worried his nightmares would be bad that night, and they were exceptionally bad. He was back to screaming and crying with images of the person who disguised himself as an officer assaulting him even though he had been arrested already. Recovery wasn’t easy; Nines had come to understand that. So he hushed him and assured him that he would be okay the same as he did their first night together.

During the weekend, Nines managed to get Gavin’s nightmares down in severity again so they were manageable. The human’s assigned therapist started coming to talk to him slow and simple first to work up to where he needed to be. Monday morning finally came around and it was time for Gavin to spend most of the day alone. Nines placed a small kiss on Gavin’s head as he sat bundled up on the couch with a TV series playing in front of him. The android wanted to tell him he loved him before walking out the door but refrained. They still hadn’t talked about their feelings. It was starting to make Nines feel what he assumed as being depressed.

Gavin’s therapist came by in the afternoon, reminding him to eat at the end of their session. The man shuffled over to the fridge and saw a prepared meal sitting on the shelf with his name written in that perfect font on a note pasted to the top. Despite physically needing Nines around him to function it seemed, The Detective was convinced that he didn’t deserve him.   
It was what was holding off him professing his feelings to the other. He only ate a few bites of his lunch, entrapped in thought as he ignored the television the rest of the afternoon. Gavin missed Nines’ company having not gone without it for more than a month.

On the other side, his android partner was constantly checking in on the voice assistant he rigged to keep track of Gavin’s breathing. Playing catch up in mountains of paperwork wasn’t his idea of a good time but he used it to keep busy. He called his partner on all his breaks to check in on him despite Hank’s advice not to “hover” over him. Gavin seemed to appreciate it, relief in his voice as he answered the phone. 

Finally it came time for most of the officers to leave for home, marking the end of their shifts. Most people left quickly with a few that hung around. Fowler bullied them into leaving to make the setting as comfortable as possible for Gavin when he came. The Detective ended up taking an automated cab that Nines ordered for him. His anxiety swelled with each block he passed on the way to the precinct. When the door opened and the little exit sign blinked on, he hesitated slightly before climbing out onto the sidewalk. A few uniformed officers glanced at him but seemed to know better than to stare. Gavin stepped through the doors and kept his head down as he scanned his badge at the front desk, ignoring the gentle welcome from Patty. It almost felt unreal, being at the station again. He really genuinely wondered if he was dreaming as he rode the elevator up to his floor. His head raised enough to peak up into the open space as the doors opened to find Nines and Connor standing before him. Instant relief swept away most of his anxiety and he let out a heavy breath. Connor greeted him and Nines placed a hand on his shoulder with a gentle smile. Gavin returned the smile sheepishly and walked with them to their captain’s office. Connor and Nines waited outside while the man took a seat in front of Fowler.

“How are you feeling?” His captain asked but the answer to the question wasn’t needed.

“Better,” Gavin returned but he didn’t really even know if he was lying or not.

“I here you need more time. I don’t blame you but my hands were starting to get tied.” 

Fowler shuffled some papers and handed over two short stacks to the other. One was a form for extended time off but without pay and the other was a form request to be placed on desk duty. Gavin swallowed hard faced with his options. He knew he should rest at home for longer but the downside was he would have to get recertified on almost everything when he came back and if he took too long, he could be demoted. On the other hand, if he came back to the precinct and simply did desk work, he could get too tired mentally which would force him to take time off again or quit. Quitting wasn’t an option.

“I know things have been very hard for you, and I can’t imagine how you’ve been feeling, but you have to choose one of these tonight. I have to submit it before the night is over.” Captain Fowler spoke in a soft tone but his face was expectant.

Gavin grimaced and signed. The choice was not easy but he made his. He picked up a pen and put it to work, signing the form for his sabbatical at home. Jeffery nodded and leaned back in his chair as Reed finished filling out the paperwork. Once he was finished, Gavin looked up at him and then back to the hole he had been boring into with his eyes on the desk.

“When you’re ready to come back, just let me know. You can tell Nines or Connor or Hank to tell me if you want and I’ll start your paperwork.”

“Thank Captain,” Reed said quietly, “For everything.”

“Anything for one of my best detectives.” Fowler nodded and offered him his hand which Gavin took and firmly shook it in reassurance.

His words resonated with Gavin as he exited the office to Connor and Nines looking like expectant puppies, waiting to hear which option he finally picked. Gavin thought his partner looked cute like that and chuckled which made his eyes sparkle even more.

“I’m gonna stay home for more time. Make sure I can come back to work confidently, you know? I’m not cut out for desk duty anyway.” He smiled tiredly and Nines nodded for it was the choice he would have chosen as well for Gavin.

After some polite goodbyes to Connor and Hank, Gavin and Nines left for home. The Detective took one glance back at the station as they pulled away. His face darkened and he slouched into his seat, leaning on Nines’ shoulder. Nines took note of his mood change and secretly watched him the whole way home, concern rising with each mile they traveled.

Once home, Gavin said nothing and went straight for the couch where he spent most of his time. He pulled out his phone and drowned himself in social media, ignoring his partner who started making his human dinner. When it was finished and placed in front of the man, he took three bites out of the food and shifted positions. His head was flat on the couch and his legs dangled over the armrest, swinging gently as if in a breeze. Gavin laid like that the rest of the night until 10pm, the usual time in which he started getting ready for bed. Nines preoccupied himself with doing small chores around the house and working on casework that he was allowed to take home. His partner seemed to want to be left alone so he did just that since he knew how valuable his space was while he recovered. 

Usually, Gavin was clingy but it was the first time he had been away from home so the human interaction at the station must have exhausted him mentally. Nines had made an enormous database in his head on every single piece of information on trauma recovery and mental health he could find. Not having much experience in either of those subjects himself, the android wanted to make sure he did absolutely nothing to negatively impact Gavin’s recovery. After all, when Nines went back to the screen that used to show his current orders or mission, it was still broken and behind the metaphorical glass was still “SAVE GAVIN” displayed prominently. He didn’t know if it would ever change since he technically saved him from his captives. Perhaps it was meant as to save Gavin from himself instead. Either way, he was completely devoted to the man sitting across from him. Nines assumed his partner knew this, but was uncertain if he realised exactly how devoted he was or how much he cared about him. There again was the conversation they needed to have yet remained silent about.

Gavin rolled over and stood up, shuffling his bare feet over to his bedroom door. Nines assumed he wished to head to bed and closed his folder to follow after him shortly after. He had already changed into his pajamas and had buried himself to the nose in his comforter. The android asked him in he wanted his company while he slept and when he only got a blank stare in response, he took a seat in a chair next to his bed. Gavin turned over and settled in for sleep. His presumed apathy towards Nines had hurt the android’s feelings but he remained collected, not showing it on his face. Something had to have happened to change his mood drastically like that and Nines wanted to know if he was okay.

After a night of worry, Gavin woke at his usual time. Not a single fret or sound came from him and he didn’t toss and turn like he usually did. Nines watched him with concern as he headed to the bathroom to start his morning routine. Normally a night like that would be a breakthrough but with how he was acting, it was cause for disconcertment. Nines didn’t want to leave him alone to go to work but it was too late to request a day off, not that he had any days left. He had to go. Instead of his usual kiss on the forehead as a goodbye, Nines gave him a sympathetic look and nodded his head before closing the door to catch his cab to work. 

Gavin watched him go with a blank expression and sat there numb and emotionless for a long while. His therapist wasn’t scheduled to come that day so he had about 10 hours to do nothing. After finished the first season of some random show he found on his TV, his thoughts turned from static to a massive storm in the silence that was the title screen. It was both a blessing and a curse that his therapist didn’t come. Depression gave way to self hatred and then turned to frustration which dived into anger over the course of an hour. Gavin couldn’t handle his violent mood swings and ended up hurling the remote into a mirror on the wall in a fit of fury, shattering it. The glass clinking to the floor filled him with instant regret and pulled him from his seat towards where his shoes were resting by the door. He put them on, along with his jacket, and stormed outside cursing under his breath all the way down the stairs to the sidewalk. Fuck these feelings he thought and headed off towards the nearest liquor store.

 

Nines had rushed home after his shift fueled by worry. The voice assistant in the apartment had alerted him to the loud sound but he couldn’t do anything about it at the time. Gavin’s vitals had remained on file up until that point and the security system they had installed told Nines the door had been opened and left unlocked for a whole 32 minutes until it was opened again by his partner. Expecting something horrific, Nines pushed open the door to find Gavin awake lounging crooked on the couch with a brown glass bottle in his hand. Upon further inspection, there were several, 8 to be precise, empty bottles strewn about across the floor surrounding Gavin with 4 bottles remaining in the cardboard case. The labels on the bottles and the smell in the air told Nines Gavin had been drinking beer and a lot of it for that matter. Before he could get a word out of his shocked open mouth, his partner had noticed he had entered and called out a drunken slurred greeting.

“Heya uh… Nines! W-Welcome back…”

Nines’ brows furrowed and anger swept through him. Gavin was not supposed to be drinking.

“What are you doing?! Are you intoxicated?!” He asked exasperated and moved a bottle away with his foot as he approached him.

“Easy easy! ‘M not drunk who do y’ think I am, a light weight?” Gavin finished his bottle and had it snatched away from him which made him frown.

“You’ve consumed nine bottles of alcohol Gavin! You cannot even form a sentence correctly and you’re swaying! How could you do this?”

“What are you my mom?” The Detective pursed his lips in a pout and folded his arms.

Nines was sent into what he assumes was a rage. He had just gotten over his forced addiction to Red Ice and was not supposed to have any substances such as drugs or alcohol he could abuse. The android had assumed Gavin had been getting better mentally but seemed to be wrong. He had worked so hard to take care of the human and was angry that Gavin would take advantage of his absence.

“What am I to you then Gavin? Why would you do this to yourself and to me?!” Nines shouted and took another step forward.

Gavin sat up and formed fists, leaning towards the other and seethed.

“What the fuck d’ya mean how could I do this to you?! You’re not th’ one who had nightmares every single time your eyes close! You’re not the one who has to feel hands all over them when your thoughts wander. How fucking dare you, you fucking some of a bitch tin can!” Nines’ eyes widened with a sharp pain in his chest and he rushed forward and grabbed Gavin’s shirt collar.”

“Tin can?! You call me a tin can when I was the one who dragged your sorry ass out of a literal sex dungeon and worked with you and took care of you for three months to make sure you were stable?”

Gavin glared at him and paused, his lip curling up in almost an animal like snarl, “I never asked you t’ do that shit for me! I never asked to be your burden!”

The android’s fists tightened around the other’s shirt and just when he thought about yelling at him, something inside of him stopped the words from coming out. His face relaxed into a determined stare and he suddenly hoisted Gavin up by the collar to a standing position. When gavin started to slur curses in protest, Nines started dragging the man towards his bedroom to the bathroom. A story Connor had told him made the android toss Gavin into the bathtub and turn the cold water on. The shower came to life and once the liquid hit Gavin, the bathroom filled with screams and flailing limbs. Once he started demanding the water to be turned off, Nines complied and knelt down to the soaking wet detective in front of him. They locked eyes and Nines spoke softly.

“You are not my burden. Not at all.”

Gavin looked at him with confusion in his newfound sobering state of mind. His previous shouting came back to his mind and his dripping wet face started to look guilty. He didn’t agree with him. In fact, he believed he wasn’t worth all the effort put into keeping him alive and safe but he kept quiet about that.

“I care about you, Gavin. It is not a burden to take care of you. You are worth it to me…” There was a short pause where Nines’ mouth twitched and he finally added to his sentence after a deep faux breath.

“I’m in love with you.”

Reed’s eyes instantly filled with tears that didn’t have the strength to break just yet and his mouth fell open. Usually this was the point where Gavin’s flight response would activate. He was famously not a fan of romantic feelings and attachment, avoiding having meaningful relationships with anyone regardless of how the other person felt. But hearing this was different. This time was different. Nines had just told him he loved him and he didn’t want to run. He didn’t want to send him on his way and avoid ever thinking about him again. Not this time. It honestly scared him, his feelings and the words that rested on his own lips. His tears began to fall down his face.

Nines watched his expression and instantly filled with terror. What if he just ruined everything with a simple short 5 word sentence. His stress levels shot up and his LED viciously spun red until a small laugh escaped Gavin. The man was smiling and crying and holding his head in both hands and laughing and he looked like he was struggling to breathe. When Nines was about to ask him to say something, Gavin wiped away his tears and leaned his head back against the shower wall.

“I’m in love with you too.”

Nines’ synthetic heart swelled so that he thought it would burst. His stress levels fell so fast it gave him whiplash and it took a moment for him to realise that the words were actually spoken and were real and not a dream. Gavin shared his feelings. A single synthetic tear ran down his face and his partner’s eyes followed it down to his chin where he reached forward to catch it on his finger. The Detective shifted in the bathtub so he was sitting properly in it and cracked a small smile.

“Out of all the bastards you could have fallen in love with, you picked me…” He sighed plesantly and shook his head.

“And out of all the people you could have fallen in love with, you picked an android,” Nines added with a small smile mirroring Gavin’s.

“Pretty crazy right? I guess that makes us perfect for each other right?” The android nodded in agreement with the other.

They sat in silence for a while staring at each other, studying the other’s faces. It wasn’t how either of them had thought they would admit their love, but perhaps it was better this way. They both would have never had the courage to bring it up in normal conversation. All it took was Gavin being intoxicated and a vicious fight. The thought made them both let out a small chuckle.

“Hey, I’m sorry… I said those things. I know I’m a pain in the ass but I shouldn’t have done it…” Gavin looked away from the other as he, in a rare moment, apologised.

Nines shook his head and smiled.

“Emotions make you human, this I have learned the hard way. I also should not have blamed you. Recovery is not linear, and I briefly forgot that. You have made great progress and one slip up shouldn’t invalidate that. I am sorry too.”

Gavin wiped his eyes and laughed softly, “Stop it, you’re gonna make me cry again.”

Nines leaned forward and took his human’s face in his hands. There was a slight hesitation where his face moved forward towards Gavin’s and then paused. The man took this opportunity and shut his eyes, closing in the gap between them to place a gentle kiss on Nines’ lips. While the human’s eyes were closed, Nines’ flew open and he could feel his internal temperature rise. He wondered if this was how human’s felt when they kissed someone they cared about. His whole body felt lighter as if he wasn’t anchored to Gavin’s lips, he would float away. Reed felt the same way for the first time. He had kissed people before but it was always a hollow feeling. This time, it was as if his whole body was filled with content so much so that it was spilling over. Gavin thought he was too old for the “first kiss feeling” but it truly felt right and so wonderful.

The two pulled away at the same time and while Nines stared at him with wonder, Gavin stared back with warmth. It was Nines’ first kiss and Gavin’s first real kiss. If android’s were capable of blushing, he would have been bright blue.

“Heh, too bad my sorry ass was your first kiss,” Gavin chuckled but looked at the other with fondness.

“Shut up Gavin.” Nines muttered and pulled him in for another kiss.

He quickly looked up kissing clips from movies to make sure he wasn’t going to embarrass himself, which the act of doing so was in itself embarrassing but the other man didn’t know that. Nines felt Gavin’s lips part and the tip of his tongue slide across his bottom lip. He could feel himself blush, or his internal temperature rise, and he did the same back to Gavin except he forgot his tongue didn’t naturally produce saliva. So when the human pulled back to look at him he felt very embarrassed. After all, he wasn’t made for kissing. His LED blinked yellow and he managed to use the solution used to clean his tongue of any residue after processing data from samples to mimic how a human’s tongue would feel. He leaned in for another kiss and did what Gavin did before, earning a satisfied hum from the man.

Nines’ LED flashed pink for barely a half a second when Gavin took the initiative and stuck his tongue past his partner’s lips as they parted. He moved it against the other’s synthetic tongue, bring out a gasp and a small noise from the android which encouraged Gavin to continue. The flood of information Nines’ was receiving made the light on his head flash between yellow and pink. This new color was something he didn’t think he had the ability to produce but he couldn’t concentrate on it for Gavin’s hands started threading through his hair. They moved down to his neck, then to his shoulders, and finally settling down on his chest. The kiss increased in intensity as his hands wandered and finally it was too much for Nines. He pulled away, simulated breathing heavy and internal temperature edging on levels that sent him warnings.

The look on Gavin’s face could have made him shut down. His face was flushed, mouth hung open, lips swollen, breathing heavy, and eyes filled with a combination of adoration and lust.

“Nines…” Gavin breathed and the aforementioned android’s Thiruim pump skipped a beat.

“Gavin...?” Nines returned, processors scattered to the quantum wind.

The man took a moment before responding, something changing in his eyes perhaps a flash of guilt crossing them. Reed took hold of Nines’ hand and placed it on his chest.

“I… don’t know how else to say this, but… I want you.”

Nines cocked his head, confused by his statement since he was already there, with him. Gavin saw this confusion and his face got even more red, which he couldn’t remember the last time he ever blushed in the first place. Nines must have been very special. The man wasn’t usually one to mince words so he just went for it.

“I want you to fuck me.”

Nines’ LED went pink for a solid 30 seconds and then quickly went back to yellow before he could even think about answering.

“Gavin… I can’t.” There were multiple reasons why it wasn’t a good idea and Nines felt bad that he was even asked such a thing.

“But-” Gavin started and Nines placed his hands on his shoulders and lifted him up out of the bathtub.

He tried to protest once again but stopped in confusion once his android started to pull off his shirt. He pulled a towel off the rack and covered Gavin’s shoulders with it. The Detective forgot he was even dripping with cold water and realised that his partner was drying him off. Once his top half was dry, Nines picked him up bridal style and took him to the bedroom where he unbuttoned his wet jeans, gesturing for Gavin to take them off. Hope darting across his eyes, Reed did as he was told and was disappointed when he saw Nines walking towards him with a change of clothes. The android turned and left the room for Gavin to change and returned once he was fully clothed again with a cup of coffee, placing it on the nightstand. His partner looked as if he were pouting so Nines came and sat on the bed next to him, placing a chaste kiss on his lips.

“I’m sorry Gavin… I know this is not what you want, I but I can’t give it to you.”

“Why not?” Gavin shifted in his place with his hands folded over his lap, staring at the floor.

“Multiple reasons,” he started carefully, “I do not think it would be wise to do something like that until your mental state has recovered a bit more. I couldn’t handle it if you were triggered during sex with me and I know you wouldn’t handle it either. I would like for that to be a safe place for you first.”

Nines had made a good point and Gavin wrung his hands in his lap, feeling guilty of trying to rush things along with his partner when they just confessed their love for each other.

“The second reason is that I don’t possess any kind of genitals to have sex with. I was not made for such things and, unlike Connor, I have not been given any kind of modifications to allow me to experience pleasure in a traditional way or give you pleasure in the way you might like.”

Gavin looked at him, surprised yet also not surprised. Nines was a police investigative detective android. Why would they outfit him with functioning sexual parts? Disappointment crossed his face but the other raised his head by cupping his cheek.

“I can ask Connor which parts he was given and who installed them so in the future perhaps we could do such things, if you want to do them with me of course.” Nines smiled reassuringly and kissed the man’s forehead.

Gavin stayed silent for a while, staring off into space as his thoughts swept through his head. He carefully planned out his words and finally managed to mutter loud enough for Nines to hear.

“I just… I still feel them, you know? Grabbing at me, touching me in places I wish they didn’t. They claimed my body as their own and I’m so tired of only being able to feel them,” He took one of his wrists in his hand and ran his fingers over the scars that his struggling against the metal handcuffs caused, “If you could just replace that feeling of their filthy hands… I don’t know if I could handle it but I can’t handle this either. I don’t know…”

Nines’ lips pursed into a flat line and he looked away. He understood where Gavin was coming from but it also didn’t feel right. The man was also still somewhat intoxicated so it especially felt uncomfortable. He would never forgive himself if his partner got triggered while they were having any kind of intimate encounter. Also, he wanted the other to be able to have positive sexual encounters to erase the negative ones. Yet he couldn’t physically do anything of the sort, at least he so he thought. 

He was pulled out of his dilemma by Gavin’s mouth on his and he became rigid as the other kissed him desperately, whispering soft pleas ghosting on breaths over his lips. It was enough to melt Nines into carefully reciprocating, his sensors heightened to detect any kind resistance or emotional distress. The Detective made his way over the other and took his hands and placed them where he wanted them to be, on his chest, shoulders, waist, and hips as he kissed him. Just as Gavin guided those hands lower, Nines hesitated and pulled back to look at him closely, trying to receive absolute and positive consent from him every second and with every movement. Reed seemed to realise this and nodded slightly, placing a kiss on his cheek in reassurance.

“I trust you.” Gavin whispered and placed his hand on top of Nines’ to dip beneath the waistband of his sweatpants into his underwear. 

Hearing those words said in such a way made him feel more comfortable and so he put his trust in Gavin. He was hard inside his pants and the other’s temperature started to rise. They took it slow, Gavin’s hand encircling his dick with the other’s hesitant hand and slowly moving along the length of it. Gavin tried to keep his eyes on Nines but his when he picked up the pace, his eyelids fluttered closed. His thoughts of the android replaced the sight of him and he blocked out any other dangerous thoughts that tried to force their way in. Slowly he was consumed by the pleasure and every time his mind wandered, he would breathe out Nines’ name to bring him back. The android watched him with concern that turned to curiosity and then to what he assumed was desire as he heard his name fall from those lips. Hips twitched and his head fell to the side and breaths of his name turned to full whines, pace picking up again erratically until his eyes flew open. He finished inside his underwear with one final strained call of Nines’ name, falling back against the sheets, breath heavy yet satisfied. The android’s light flashed pink and went back to a steady blue once he realised Gavin was stable after the experience.

“Are you okay?” He asked after Gavin didn’t get up for a moment.

“Yeah, yeah. Actually yeah, better than I thought,” he managed to say between breaths, “No bad thoughts thanks to you.”

Nines smiled, relieved that he could help give his partner a positive sexual experience for the first time in months. He thought perhaps this would actually help Gavin recover if his negative experiences were replaced with safe ones. Just as he finished his thought, the other shimmied sideways and wiggled out of his pants, tucking his lower body under the comforter to then toss his sullied clothes towards the direction of his laundry. Nines assumed he wanted to go to bed while he was still relaxed and instead of going over to place the laundry in the basket, he joined Gavin under the blanket and held him close to his chest. 

“I love you.” Nines whispered into his hair tucked under his chin.

“I love you too.”

Gavin’s dreams were quiet that night.

-

It took Gavin another 2 months to return to the station again. With a lot of work from Nines and his therapist, Detective Reed passed his mental evaluation and was moved off of desk duty in no time to return to the field. He was given light cases at first with Nines as his partner of course and worked closely with Hank and Connor. Gavin and Nines formally moved in together and had Kamski upgrade Nines when they were both ready. Eventually the story of the big rescue faded and became just that, a story, and Gavin was finally given peace from it. This newfound peace gave him the confidence to apply for the sergeant’s exam which he passed on his very first attempt. Nines couldn’t have been more proud and became part of his squad to go on and get himself promoted as well. As for Gavin’s dream of becoming the youngest lieutenant in the Detroit Police Department, with his support from his fiance and his friends, it was looking more and more achievable every day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I know this chapter was long but you made it through!  
> I would like to say my inspiration for both Gavin and Nines would be Everybery and Ian. If you haven't seen their cosplays, you totally should. I'm really happy to finish this hoped you enjoyed your reading experience! Thanks again!


End file.
